Irrational Atheism

Atheists don't seem to understand the nature of logic or reason. They think in such a whapmerjawed fashion. One of the major examples is their penchant for arguing that one must prove an argument he can make it. If you have to prove an argument before you can make it, how can you ever prove it because you to make it to prove it? How does one prove an argument without making the argument. Yesterday on carm one not only argued this, but also claimed I was begging the question because I defined what I mean by "God." She said "but you haven't proved that God exists so you can't talk about what God is like." She called that begging the question. Discussing one's belief is not begging the question. Begging the question only happens when one is using the point in dispute to answer the argument against the point in dispute. But just talking about how I believe God to be is not doing that.

But nothing beats the pathetic nature of atheists trying to sake a God argument. No length of incredulity is incredulous enough for such a one. No lie too false, no slander too bold, anything goes in resisting a God argument.

Yesterday I put down an argument on CARM:

he said nothing but quibble with the definitions.

my argument:

Terms:

Aseity = an existent cannot fail or cease to exist;is not dependent upon anything else for its existence (self sufficient existence--an extension of Ontological necessity, I will use the terms interchangeably).

God = The object of our ultimate concerns; the proper object of our religious devotion.

Contingent existence = an existent can fail or cease; the existence of which is conditioned other events.

PSA = Putative State of Affairs, the essential starting point or the ontologically prior condition for existence.

Numinous = Feeling of utter dependence, the object of ultimate concerns, sense of the Holy, any sense that we have of the special nature of things beyond the mundane.

Being itself = not a pure abstraction, not the sum total of existing things, but the basic nature of being apart from nothingness; both being in itself and being for itself.This is nt a mystical concept, it is merely a reference to any form of being, without regard to any particular being.

Argument:


(1)Nothingness as PSA is marked by its own contradiction,

A.True absolute nothingness and PSA are contradictions because nothingness means nothing at all, and PSA is something.

B.True nothingness would lack any essential potential for change; no time, no ptoentiality, noting at all; therefore, no change, no becoming.

Therefore: (2)Being, in some form, as the alterntive to nothingness must obtain to a state of aseity.

(3)Aseity implies eternal and the infinite.

(4)Human being is contrasted by finitude.

(5)The awareness of our finitude in contrast to Aseity of Being creates a sense of the unbounded condition; which evokes our sense of the numinous.

(6) The sense of the numious creates religious devotion, thus we have an object of religious devotion and theological discourse in Being itself.

(7) An object of religious devotion and theological discourse is a ratinal warrent for belief.

his comments:

proper object of our religious devotion. Improper definition, since there is no single such object for all people - unless you have started to speak of yourself in the pluralis maiestatis

The object of my ultimate concern is the survival of humanity. For me, there is no proper object of any religious devotion.

Contingent existence = an existent can fail or cease; the existence of which is conditioned other events.

As has been demonstrated a long time ago, the two definitions are not logically equivalent.

PSA = Putative State of Affairs, the essential starting point or the ontologically prior condition for existence.

This definition depends on one's personal ontology.

Numinous = Feeling of utter dependence, the object of ultimate concerns, sense of the Holy, any sense that we have of the special nature of things beyond the mundane.

Please speak for I have no such feelings.

Being itself = not a pure abstraction, not the sum total of existing things, but the basic nature of being apart from nothingness;

A "nature" is a property of some object. Of what object is "being itself" a property ?

both being in itself and being for itself.This is nt a mystical concept, it is merely a reference to any form of being, without regard to any particular being.

So "being itself" is just a placeholder ? You are being itself, I am being itself ... ?

"Whatever can be said can be said clearly" (from the prologue to the Tractatus). You would be well advised to heed Ludwig's words.

notice all the comments are about definition. He says nothing about the bit with numbers in the "argument" part.  The things with which he's quibbling in the definitions are matters of how I use the word; OF course he disputes that there is an object of ultimate concern. what does that do logically to the argument? does that beat the point about being is eternal? No it 'just tells you how i use the term God. He can say "I do not believe in the God you believe in" but does that disprove it? no of course not. It's not even a valid question about definitions since it's my explanation of how I use the term it really can't be questioned. The ultimate point can be disputed but not the fact that I use the word that way?


Then Donald says:

HRG answered it just fine- and your rebuttal is nothing but insults, and insistance that your concepts DO make sense. I'm starting to suspect that either one of two things is the case- either you know your arguments are worthless, but you're hoping that everyone will be too dazzled to notice; or you've actually fooled yourself into thinking that things like "being itself" is meaningful. I think you're hoping that nobody will look too closely, either way- and when someone does (as HRG does regularly), you have no recourse but to insist that your argument makes sense, while insulting the other person's intelligence and education- probably in the hopes of scaring away anyone else who might attempt it.

where? where did he talk about anything other than the definitions? Somehow this guy sees this vast crushing victory. how?  he goes on and own about the emperors cloths and what not. where's the argument? Where is any sort of argument about the premises? He's desperate and clutching at straws. their logic is putrid it's just absurd.

Atheism Vanishes

Merriam-Websetr's Online dictionary

www.secularhumanism.org/

Main Entry:
athe·ism Listen to the pronunciation of atheism
Pronunciation:
\ˈā-thē-ˌi-zəm\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Middle French athéisme, from athée atheist, from Greek atheos godless, from a- + theos god
Date:
1546

1archaic : ungodliness , wickedness2 a: a disbelief in the existence of deity b: the doctrine that there is no deity

Atheists sure insist upon the notion that atheism is just a natural lack of belief in something, yet nothing could be further from the truth. Almost every dictionary definition before the 1990s said that Atheism was the rejection of belief in God.

Now most include two things (1) rejection (2) mere lack. Why? Because with he advent of the Internet age atheism got a new lease on life and was given this organizing tool, it began crowding out agnosticism. Agnosticism began to appear in the guise of "weak atheism." Then atheism became a mere lack of belief that sees itself as a natural default position. Atheists love to think that all people are born natural atheists, which is obviously disprove by the recent studies about brain structure and innate ideas of God.


Atheism has never been merely a lack of belief. If you were honest about what you really think, your behavior and tendencies, it always accompanies certain assumptions about the nature of the world, about naturalism and about physical laws.Atheism is clearly more than just the lack of a belief, which really should be called "agnosticism."




Among the many assumptions that go into atheist position is the one about a default assumption. Atheists like to tell themselves that since atheism is merely a lack of belief, babies are born with no belief, thus babies are born atheists. They like to say that because they are so  overwhelmed by the general population that's the only way they can feel good about their numbers.  Seriously, that's a joke, but really it is indicative of the notion of a "default" assumption. They think that since atheism is merely lack of belief then there must be a default, a position one falls back upon in the abases of proof, and that position is, of course, atheism since lack of proof should logically yield lack of belief--i.e. "atheism" in their view.

Of course the default assumption is undermined by the evidence on "God Pod" and other evidence which makes it clear that there is a religious instinct.


I've always thought the atheist default position was pretentious and presumptive, and designed by someone who just lionized atheism. But there should be a religious default position to the extent that there's no particular reason to assume naturalism over any other position. The world doesn't come to us wrapped in philosophical labels. We have to go to school and teach them, and most of the time they play on our prejudices. There's no reason to validate one over another form the outset.

But my religious a prior argument would argue that religion is not derivative from other disciplines but is a valid thing in itself own right. As such we can assume the properly basic nature of religious belief as a 'default" position


1) The notion of something from nothing violates basic assumptions of materialism


a. Materialism based upon cause and effect


Dictionary of Philosophy Anthony Flew, article on "Materialism"

"...The belief that everything that exists is ether matter or entirely dependent upon matter for its existence." Center For Theology and the Natural Sciences Contributed by: Dr. Christopher Southgate: God, Humanity and the Cosmos (T&T Clark, 1999) Is the Big Bang a Moment of Creation?

"...Beyond the Christian community there was even greater unease. One of the fundamental assumptions of modern science is that every physical event can be sufficiently explained solely in terms of preceding physical causes. Quite apart from its possible status as the moment of creation, the Big Bang singularity is an offense to this basic assumption. Thus some philosophers of science have opposed the very idea of the Big Bang as irrational and intestable."



b) Something from nothing contradicts materialism


Science and The Modern World, Alfred North Whitehead
NY: free Press, 1925, (1953) p. 76

"We are content with superficial orderings form diverse arbitrary starting points ... science which is employed in their development [modern thought] is based upon a philosophy which asserts that physical cessation is supreme, and which disjoints the physical cause from the final end. It is not popular to dwell upon the absolute contradiction here involved."[Whitehead was an atheist]



c) Causality was the basis upon which God was expelled from Modern Science

It was LaPlase's famous line "I have no need of that Hypothesis" [meaning God] Which turned the scientific world form believing (along with Newton and assuming that order in nature proved design) to unbelief on the principle that we don't' need God to explain the universe because we have independent naturalistic cause and effete. [Numbers, God and Nature]


2) Materialism Undermines Itself


a) Big Bang contradicts causality (see quotation above)


b) QM theory seems to contradict cause/effect relationship.


c) Rejection of final cause


3) Probabilistic Justification for assumption of Cause

We still have a huge justification for assuming causes inductively, since nothing in our experience is ever uncased. The mere fact that we can't see or find a cause isn't a proof that there isn't one.


4) Therefore, we have probabilistic justification for assuming Final cause

Thus, the basis upon which God was dismissed from scientific thought has been abandoned; the door to consideration of God is open again. The reliance upon naturalistic cause and effect in consideration of ultimate origins is shattered, but this does not make it rational to just assume that the universe pooped into existence with no cause. Since we have vast precedent for assuming cause and effect, we should continue to do so. But since naturalistic cause and effect seems unnecessary at the cosmic level, we should consider the probability of an ultimate necessary final cause.


I've been attacked by atheists saying that this position betrays modern science. But it is modern atheism that betrays modern science, because this position flows right out of a historically conscious take on materialism. The problem is atheist ear OT historically conscious. They have already abandoned the basic philosophical premises which took them into the modern world and which seemed to give them an edge over Christianity and religious thought, and most of them don't seem to care. Like my argument on "Materialism vanishes" I think modern atheism vanishes.
We don't have atheists anymore. What we relay have is a bunch of people with a default assumption for not having a belief.

Rex Responds With More Idiological Banter

 Here is Rex's comment in all it's glory:

There are so many logical leaps in this post that I could spend many many paragraphs on them, but since I don't have much time for your nonsense, I will just pick on this one:

God = being itself. that means God is not a being but the basis upon which all be is. "Eternal Necessary Being itself" means this: God is not an individual being but the basis upon which all beings cohere. Does not need cause since "eternal" means no beginning and no end.

Wow! Deep! And totally unfalsifiable! Typical!

So let me get this straight, the reality based thinkers go back only so far toward the big bang, and then they run into a wall with physics and mathematics and theories of how it worked, and you have a problem with that. That is understandable for someone who is frightened of an open ended question. Your answer is the crazy, superstitious mumbo jumbo highlighted above? And you think it makes more sense to believe in your story than to accept the scientific observations and theories that are honest enough to clearly show where we don't yet understand.

I guess it is more important for you to have the definitive indisputable answers now rather than wait for the correct ones, when we, or if, finally get them.

Again, I am sorry for you that you can't accept a view of reality without supernatural causes.

Go ahead and keep your security blanket of god if that is what it takes for you to be able to sleep at night.

I prefer to see the universe as it really is, not as I would necessarily like to see it. I prefer reality even if it means we have unanswered questions and that we have no one to back us up but ourselves.

Meta:let's break it down
 Rex:

There are so many logical leaps in this post that I could spend many many paragraphs on them, but since I don't have much time for your nonsense, I will just pick on this one:

Meta: You have already demosntated that you don't know logic.



(what Meta said before:)

God = being itself. that means God is not a being but the basis upon which all be is. "Eternal Necessary Being itself" means this: God is not an individual being but the basis upon which all beings cohere. Does not need cause since "eternal" means no beginning and no end.

Rex's answer:

Wow! Deep! And totally unfalsifiable! Typical!

Meta: First of all you don't even understand the nature of falsifiability or why or when it should be used. If you did you would know that it's limited to empirical concepts. Being is empirical in the philosophical sense, it's given in sense data and through first had observation, but we don't need the kind of falsifiability used in scinece in order to understand the truth of it becasue since nothing can be outside of being it can't be falsified. It's empirical in one sense but also a priori in another. In that it doesn't require falsification because the truth if it is a priori. Unless on speaks in a specialized sense nothing can be outside of being. The concept of being itself is clear and distinct and logically necessary.

Rex:

So let me get this straight, the reality based thinkers go back only so far toward the big bang, and then they run into a wall with physics and mathematics and theories of how it worked, and you have a problem with that.

I think he's referring to reductionists and empiricists all those who hover on the surface of real thought "reality based" because they can muster tangible proof for those few aspects they limit reality to, and he's not well read enough or learned enough to understand their tricks of the consequences of following their jaundice debauched ideas of the trucked mess they define as "reality." That school tries to reduce everything that they can't control to a level that must be doubted a prori, so that reality shrinks to the limit of what they do control. They do that so their concepts define truth and all that is beyond control (God, truth, morality, decency, goodness, love, friendship, social justice) they just defend as "emotional, subjective, unimportant, cant' be proved empirically (by our methods). 

The naive unread atheists like trust lambs march to slaughter and give all that makes them human because they don't want to think they want to be accepted by the cult and feel powerful. The basic tricks of reductionism revolve around re-describing/labeling, reducing to nothing that which they can't control, re-defining reality to the limit of their control. In re-describing and labeling they actually reduce reality to a level that concists only of things they control; reduce emotions to supertion, so that one can't sense the falsehood in their deceptions, redefine "the real" as only that which can be proved so therefore, only their control is real. They extend each of these tricks to a point that they never have to face the illogical of their view because any hint that their views are wrong is automatically taken out in the supposition that anything contrary is unreal.

Even when confronted with these diabolical and dishonest tricks, the naive little atheist can't see that this is the way con men argue  because they are so desirous of power and so longing to be accepted by the "in" group that they will accept any outrage against humanity and call withering of the human spirit as "humanism" becuase they need so deeply to feel good about themselves, but refuse so steadfastly to obtain that properly form their source of being (clinging to their pet sins).

Rex:

That is understandable for someone who is frightened of an open ended question. Your answer is the crazy, superstitious mumbo jumbo highlighted above? And you think it makes more sense to believe in your story than to accept the scientific observations and theories that are honest enough to clearly show where we don't yet understand.

Here Rex is spouting the propaganda that he's been brain washed into by the cult. He's so entrenched in it that he can't think in a line. We see in this outburst of sloganeering all the basic tricks I've laid bare. First he slanders the motives of real thinkers. Anyone who believes ideas contrary to his world view must be afraid and superstitious. It can't be that they are just taking a different view because they have a  different view and thus see the world differently. It has to be that something is wrong with the way they think and in so saying he is actually saying all philosophy, all application of logic to reality, the whole idea that there's more to truth are reality than studying wrote from scinece is all brain washed superstitious lie and all that could be real is the garbage of delusion that the reductionist tell him to think. The reason that's true is because the point he's making is that if I don't see it his way then I'm just afraid and crouching in superstition (which is what being itself is, to him, that means to him any product of philosophical thinking is superstitious) atheists can only accept one form of  knowledge and that is their jaundiced reading of science. That doesn't' mean that I think the true reading of scinece is  creationist. I am not a creationist! I don't think Rex even knows that. But atheists think the only alternative t their mutilation of scinece is creationism; atheists are as messed up about scinece as creationists are.

Here's where we see that he actaully this say:

And you think it makes more sense to believe in your story than to accept the scientific observations and theories

When he says that he's actually saying that unless you agree with his view (if you take philosophy seriously) then you are at odds with scinece. So not only is there only one from of knowledge that is scinece, but it has to be the atheist bull shit science that seeks to eliminate all other forms of thought.






he says:

that are honest enough to clearly show where we don't yet understand.

Of course I've already demonstrated that empirical knowledge is limited and can't answer the questions raised by religious belief or faith, it can't answer the question of being or the question of God so other types of knowledge are mandated a priori,. Of cousre he's condemning types of thought recognized around the world as major aspect of human knowledge and valued in every major universities  in the world, but his intellectual is much greater becasue he is he's doing so without having read any of the major works in those vast sweeping forms of thought that are as diverse and established as philosophy, literature, art, music, religion, and even the study of logic  as a discipline.

He claims that the reductionists (science to him) is "honest enough to show where we don't understand" but it's not clearly it's not. Dawkins is trying to reduce God to a level that scinece can eliminate. Rather than be honest to admit that scinece cant' deal with the questions of the major concern to humanity, he tries to reduce the level of concern to one that the atheist cult can control; the atheist ideology is primarily about control. It is the philosophers, apologies, and theologians who are honest enough to admit the limits of their inquiry..



Rex

I guess it is more important for you to have the definitive indisputable answers now rather than wait for the correct ones, when we, or if, finally get them.

The issues of falsifiability and a prori reasoning are way over his head.

Rex

Again, I am sorry for you that you can't accept a view of reality without supernatural causes.

Meta:Of course he's begging the question because he has not the sliest idea what supernatural means. I've demonstrated this time and time again. I've also demonstrated 12 areas where we have empirical evidence of the supernatural.. 

That is not a matter of empirical limit since there's overlap and we can have some empirical evidence of super nature proper. Of cousre he doesn't understand what that means because he's never willing to read the material the many times I've presented it. You see more of the data here.

Even the atheist Abraham Maslow undestood that sueprnatural is not supersticious and that it is empirically demonsrable:

Now that may be taken as a frank admission of a naturalistic psychological origin, except that it invovles a universal symbology which is not explicable through merely naturalistic means. How is it that all humans come to hold these same archetypal symbols?  The "prematives" viewed and understood a sense of transformation which gave them an integration into the universe. This is crucial for human development. They sensed a power in the numinous, that is the origin of religion."

"In Appendix I and elsewhere in this essay, I have spoken of unitive perception, i.e., fusion of the B-realm with the D-realm, fusion of the eternal with the temporal, the sacred with the profane, etc. Someone has called this "the measureless gap between the poetic perception of reality and prosaic, unreal commonsense." Anyone who cannot perceive the sacred, the eternal, the symbolic, is simply blind to an aspect of reality, as I think I have amply demonstrated elsewhere (54), and in Appendix I, from Peak Experience

--Abrham Maslow

Go ahead and keep your security blanket of god if that is what it takes for you to be able to sleep at night.

I prefer to see the universe as it really is, not as I would necessarily like to see it. I prefer reality even if it means we have unanswered questions and that we have no one to back us up but ourselves.

What is really hilarious is that you don't want to see it. Your eyes shut your head is in the sand. You wont even read the link.Ive devastated 200 studies prove my point about the supernatural and religious expedience you wont even go to the trouble to look at the one page and find out the distinction between the wrong idea and the right idea, much less examine the evidence. Not only will he not read a single source that I point to for proof of my view, but he has not one single study to back his view! He would rather just believe what his atheist handlers and brain washers tell him to think then to seek truth for himself!

I have 200 studies.

He has 0 studies

He's quaking about me being afraid to think about the other views (I was an atheist) he wont even read a single page I link to)! you decide.

Answering Rex: Why are Atheists so unable to understand concepts?

Blogger Rex said...

Atheism is not a "belief". It is simply the lack of "belief" in a deity.

Meta

that's nothing more than a slogan of propaganda that you have suckered into believing. Atheism is a con game. It's obviously not true becuase one can clearly see from what atheist always say it's a total world view.

Rex

It is irrational to believe in something for which there is no evidence, ergo, a - theism.

that's another propaganda slogan that suckers like you accept because it's for people who aren't bright and don't know much. The truth is the criteria for acceptance of belief is very complex. There are no quick and easy fact that demonstrate what is ratinoal to believe. But religious belief is demonstrated more rational in a hundred ways.

Rex

Think of it as a - unicornism. You do share my a - unicornism, right?

name calling. that's just like the use of the N word.

Rex

There is ample evidence for the existence of the universe, for deities, not so much.

there is no such thing as a plurality of deities. The atheist because he is obsessed with "things" and can't think in conceptual terms reduces the concept of God to a "thing" rather than a basis for everything. Because of this conceptual mistake he is not intellectually capable of seeing the necessity for belief.

Rex

But let me ask you a couple questions, Mr. I Have All Of The Answers: What is the cause for god? What created god?

another example of the atheist intellectually inferior outlook. Duh they can't get it through their heads. Thins need causes, the basis of things does not!

God = being itself. that means God is not a being but the basis upon which all be is. "Eternal Necessary Being itself" means this: God is not an individual being but the basis upon which all beings cohere. Does not need cause since "eternal" means no beginning and no end.



Rex

What was there before god?

Yet more evidence of the atheist problem of understanding concepts. What part of "No beginning" is so hard for these poor intellectually deficient creatures to grasp?

It is very hard for someone who loves ideas to grasp that this kind of person can't understand concepts.

Rex

Something from nothing seems to really bother you, does the same logic apply to your superstition?

I don't have a superstition. anyone who can't understand the concept of "eternal" or of "no beginning no ending" can't understand the distinction between philosophy and superstition.

something from nothing is obviously a contradiction to the basis of naturalistic cause and effect this just demonstrates eh contradiction in atheism argument--it also shows who unable to consider concepts atheists really are.

Rex

Someone as learned and esteemed as yourself surely has these answers right? Answer your big bang questions about god.

I just gave them to you.

If your answers actually make rational sense, you will get bonus points, but I am not holding my breath.

Unfortunately in order to understand the answers you would have to actually not have the problem with learning and with concepts that you clearly have.

These are also atheist propaganda slogans that may be why they have such problems with concepts. The brain washing tells them these slogans that prevent them from really thinking deeply about the issues.

Contradiction at the Heart of Atheism

On the one hand you tell me that laws of physics are just descriptive and they don't determine anything. On the other hand you say that there is natural world that extends beyond our space/time, presumably to anything physical? So you see the dichotomy of nature/spirit as physical, tangible, visible vs "in" and "un" and "non" versions of these, interchangeable, invisible, non physical.

But how can it be that "nature" extends all over existence beyond the realm of all we know to all other realms anywhere and yet there are no prescriptive physical laws? It seems to be that to be able say that you would have to have a set of laws that delimit what can happen. Otherwise how can you possibly know there is not a universe in which all existence is immaterial?



Here are some quotes about Big bang cosmology. They are from major physicists and some obscure physicists and the major upshot of them is we have no physics to explain the big bang.


No Physics to explain something from nothing.


John Mather, NASA's principal investigator of the cosmic background radiation's spectral curve with the COBE satellite, stated: "We have equations that describe the transformation of one thing into another, but we have no equations whatever for creating space and time. And the concept doesn't even make sense, in English. So I don't think we have words or concepts to even think about creating something from nothing. And I certainly don't know of any work that seriously would explain it when it can't even state the concept."[John Mather, interview with Fred Heeren on May 11, 1994, cited in his book Show Me God (1998), Wheeling, IL, Searchlight Publications, p. 119-120.]

That is describing the excepted theory, that the universe seems to pop up from nothing, yet physicists just accept it and assume that its possible even with no physics to explian it. That is a total paradigm shift.

*Multiverse is unscientific metaphysics.

Sten Odenwald, Gaddard, Nasa: http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/a11215.html

"yes there could be other universes out there, but they would be unobservable no matter how old our universe became...even infinitely old!! So, such universes have no meaning to science because there is no experiment we can perform to detect them."

John Mather, NASA's principal investigator of the cosmic background radiation's spectral curve with the COBE satellite, stated: "We have equations that describe the transformation of one thing into another, but we have no equations whatever for creating space and time. And the concept doesn't even make sense, in English. So I don't think we have words or concepts to even think about creating something from nothing. And I certainly don't know of any work that seriously would explain it when it can't even state the concept."[John Mather, interview with Fred Heeren on May 11, 1994, cited in his book Show Me God (1998), Wheeling, IL, Searchlight Publications, p. 119-120.]That is describing the excepted theory, that the universe seems to pop up from nothing, yet physicists just accept it and assume that its possible even with no physics to explain it. That is a total paradigm shift. "yes there could be other universes out there, but they would be unobservable no matter how old our universe became...even infinitely old!! So, such universes have no meaning to science because there is no experiment we can perform to detect them."
Some physicists, such as Oldenwald, are aware of this, but that doesn't stop the the materialists from continuing the assumption. So if it is religious metaphysics its bad, but if its metaphysics the materialist can use it's "ok."



We have no physics to explain the bb and yet you want to argue that know what it is and how works and that is material. dilemma

(1) if physical laws are not prescriptive then you must explain how everything can be the same all over all existence

(2) if psychical laws are not prescriptive

.....(a) believe in miracles there no barrier to them

.....(b) it could be that some worlds are supernatural. It's only if you have a delimiting set of laws that you can clearly define natural from supernatural (if you go by the degraded concept most of you try to defend)

Second dilemma

(1) if there is a physics to explain bb then it's seems physical laws are prescriptive

(2) if there is no physics to explain it then it doesn't corporate by natural law we can well think of the bb as supernatural. Or even magic.

Atheism Vanishes

Merriam-Websetr's Online dictionary

www.secularhumanism.org/

Main Entry:
athe·ism Listen to the pronunciation of atheism
Pronunciation:
\ˈā-thē-ˌi-zəm\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Middle French athéisme, from athée atheist, from Greek atheos godless, from a- + theos god
Date:
1546

1archaic : ungodliness , wickedness2 a: a disbelief in the existence of deity b: the doctrine that there is no deity

Atheists sure insist upon the notion that atheism is just a natural lack of belief in something, yet nothing could be further from the truth. Almost every dictionary definition before the 1990s said that Atheism was the rejection of belief in God.

Now most include two things (1) rejection (2) mere lack. Why? Because with he advent of the Internet age atheism got a new lease on life and was given this organizing tool, it began crowding out agnosticism. Agnosticism began to appear in the guise of "weak atheism." Then atheism became a mere lack of belief that sees itself as a natural default position. Atheists love to think that all people are born natural atheists, which is obviously disprove by the recent studies about brain structure and innate ideas of God.


Atheism has never been merely a lack of belief. If you were honest about what you really think, your behavior and tendencies, it always accompanies certain assumptions about the nature of the world, about naturalism and about physical laws.Atheism is clearly more than just the lack of a belief, which really should be called "agnosticism."




Among the many assumptions that go into atheist position is the one about a default assumption. Atheists like to tell themselves that since atheism is merely a lack of belief, babies are born with no belief, thus babies are born atheists. They like to say that because they are so  overwhelmed by the general population that's the only way they can feel good about their numbers.  Seriously, that's a joke, but really it is indicative of the notion of a "default" assumption. They think that since atheism is merely lack of belief then there must be a default, a position one falls back upon in the abases of proof, and that position is, of course, atheism since lack of proof should logically yield lack of belief--i.e. "atheism" in their view.

Of course the default assumption is undermined by the evidence on "God Pod" and other evidence which makes it clear that there is a religious instinct.


I've always thought the atheist default position was pretentious and presumptive, and designed by someone who just lionized atheism. But there should be a religious default position to the extent that there's no particular reason to assume naturalism over any other position. The world doesn't come to us wrapped in philosophical labels. We have to go to school and teach them, and most of the time they play on our prejudices. There's no reason to validate one over another form the outset.

But my religious a prior argument would argue that religion is not derivative from other disciplines but is a valid thing in itself own right. As such we can assume the properly basic nature of religious belief as a 'default" position


1) The notion of something from nothing violates basic assumptions of materialism


a. Materialism based upon cause and effect


Dictionary of Philosophy Anthony Flew, article on "Materialism"

"...The belief that everything that exists is ether matter or entirely dependent upon matter for its existence." Center For Theology and the Natural Sciences Contributed by: Dr. Christopher Southgate: God, Humanity and the Cosmos (T&T Clark, 1999) Is the Big Bang a Moment of Creation?

"...Beyond the Christian community there was even greater unease. One of the fundamental assumptions of modern science is that every physical event can be sufficiently explained solely in terms of preceding physical causes. Quite apart from its possible status as the moment of creation, the Big Bang singularity is an offense to this basic assumption. Thus some philosophers of science have opposed the very idea of the Big Bang as irrational and intestable."



b) Something from nothing contradicts materialism


Science and The Modern World, Alfred North Whitehead
NY: free Press, 1925, (1953) p. 76

"We are content with superficial orderings form diverse arbitrary starting points ... science which is employed in their development [modern thought] is based upon a philosophy which asserts that physical cessation is supreme, and which disjoints the physical cause from the final end. It is not popular to dwell upon the absolute contradiction here involved."[Whitehead was an atheist]



c) Causality was the basis upon which God was expelled from Modern Science

It was LaPlase's famous line "I have no need of that Hypothesis" [meaning God] Which turned the scientific world form believing (along with Newton and assuming that order in nature proved design) to unbelief on the principle that we don't' need God to explain the universe because we have independent naturalistic cause and effete. [Numbers, God and Nature]


2) Materialism Undermines Itself


a) Big Bang contradicts causality (see quotation above)


b) QM theory seems to contradict cause/effect relationship.


c) Rejection of final cause


3) Probabilistic Justification for assumption of Cause

We still have a huge justification for assuming causes inductively, since nothing in our experience is ever uncased. The mere fact that we can't see or find a cause isn't a proof that there isn't one.


4) Therefore, we have probabilistic justification for assuming Final cause

Thus, the basis upon which God was dismissed from scientific thought has been abandoned; the door to consideration of God is open again. The reliance upon naturalistic cause and effect in consideration of ultimate origins is shattered, but this does not make it rational to just assume that the universe pooped into existence with no cause. Since we have vast precedent for assuming cause and effect, we should continue to do so. But since naturalistic cause and effect seems unnecessary at the cosmic level, we should consider the probability of an ultimate necessary final cause.


I've been attacked by atheists saying that this position betrays modern science. But it is modern atheism that betrays modern science, because this position flows right out of a historically conscious take on materialism. The problem is atheist ear OT historically conscious. They have already abandoned the basic philosophical premises which took them into the modern world and which seemed to give them an edge over Christianity and religious thought, and most of them don't seem to care. Like my argument on "Materialism vanishes" I think modern atheism vanishes.
We don't have atheists anymore. What we relay have is a bunch of people with a default assumption for not having a belief.

Are Atheists capable of Moral Thinking?

Some atheists just seem unable to cope with the concepts of morality. Some even argue that God is at fault for their sins because he doesn't take free choice away from them. they want to be controlled like robots so they don't have face the responsibility of what they do. Here's a discussion I had with one on CARM:



Originally Posted by Metacrock View Post
according to my theory sin is a necessary risk if you want a moral universe. No risk of sin (because of free will) no moral universe. To have one means having endure the other.

Atheist:Ah I see, so God is directly responsible for sin in your theory. What purpose does sin or humanity exactly serve? Can God create something
people who choose to sin are responsible for sin. what should we call the failure to recognize this? the inability to understand ethical thinking?

God took a risk that he had to take. I say again, that he had to take had to take had to take.

you need not choose sin! get it?

Atheist:Quote:
more morally good then himself?

I can't understand this twisted logic. you are told God has to risk allowing you to choose wrongly to get the good, but you choose. then you up and decide well it must be God's fault that I chose wrongly. If he was on his toes he would stop me from choosing.

Are you really so unable to take responsibility for what you do? then you turn around and want me to say that atheists are moral? in what sense are you moral if you can't be trusted with moral choices?

Atheist: can people sin in heaven?

Quote:
I don't really know because I haven't been there. But I would say it's theoretically possible. But why would they? it's already pre selected and made up of people who chose to be good.

Atheist:Would you say that Heaven isn't entirely sin-free since the prospect of it still exists?

why would I say that. you see you are afraid to take responsibly and thus want your choices to be taken away form you as though you are child but moral people don't have to do that. since heaven has all moral people in it then we can assume no one sins.

Quote:Atheist
When you say 'pre-selected', do you mean in a Calvinistic sense of "We are selected when we are born"?

No, when we get saved in live not when we are born. pre selected from the other end, form death.

Atheist:
Exactly how much 'suffering' or 'life' does someone need to experience before they understand "Internalized Good Values"? Is there any difference between a kid who dies only experiencing a scraped knee or a very old man?

That's like asking how old do you have to be before you are mature.

Like I said before. you can't get there without going through it. you can't cheat your way to experience. you have to do the work to get the experience.

Atheist:But God is it without going through it (which in some metaphysical lingo means he is actually above just having it). Why didn't God just do to humans what he is himself? He himself is able to abide by the "Internalized Good Values" without needing the experience of 'living' on earth. Why didn't he just create humans with that same trait?

Man I just don't understand what its so hard for atheists to understand these things. so clear to me. I tell you over and over God is the basis of what is good. ti's who he is, its base dupon his character. not ours. we don't have that charter. we have to acquire it God has it because he's god. he' perect he is it. why can't you understand that?

__________________
At some point they will invariably turn the issue to "you are saying atheists aren't good people and can't be moral, so that means you hate us." This is really a symptom of guilt. Somewhere deep inside they feel that they are sinners, but the conditioning of it is so painful they can't accept it. The average Christian thinks, "we all sin, all us Christians know that, so it's just  matter of being aware and asking forgiveness, but of course you have to be sincere." Really I think that's the whole issue, atheists sense in their spirits they are sinners, because all people are, but they don't want forgiveness they want amnesty meaning,t hey don't want to stop sinning, they just don't want the condemnation for sin. So they make a matter "telling me this is an insult" so they can shut the Christian up and not be reminded, and then chalk up their bad feelings to the evil useless nature of guilt feelings, which in the atheist mind are the most absurd, evil, and bad kinds of feelings. All feelings are bad, we should all be passionless unemotional scinece machines, but guilt feelings are the worst.

Atheism and The Twelve Stage Model of Hate groups

When first I launched Atheist Watch I brought out the seven stage model of hate group development used by the FBI. Now I trun to the first four stages, and I feel this is where hate group atheism (Dawkamentalists) are today:


The seven-stage hate model: The psychopathology of hate groups
FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin/March 1, 2003
By John R. Schafer, MA and Joe Navarro, MA

Stage 1: The Haters Gather

Irrational haters seldom hate alone.10 They feel compelled, almost driven, to entreat others to hate asthey do. Peer validation bolsters a sense of self-worth and, at the same time, prevents introspection, which reveals personal insecurities.11 Further, individuals otherwise ineffective become empowered when they join groups, which also provide anonymity and diminished accountability.
Stage 2: The Hate Group Defines Itself

Hate groups form identities through symbols, rituals, and mythologies, which enhance the members' status and, at the same time, degrade the object of their hate. For example, skinhead groups may adopt the swastika, the iron cross, the Confederate flag, and other supremacist symbols. Group-specific symbols or clothing often differentiate hate groups. Group rituals, such as hand signals and secret greetings, further fortify members. Hate groups, especially skinhead groups, usually incorporate some form of self-sacrifice, which allows haters to willingly jeopardize their well-being for the greater good of the cause. Giving one's life to a cause provides the ultimate sense of value and worth to life.12 Skinheads often see themselves as soldiers in a race war.
Stage 3: The Hate Group Disparages the Target

Hate is the glue that binds haters to one another and to a common cause.13 By verbally debasing the object of their hate, haters enhance their self-image, as well as their group status. In skinhead groups, racist song lyrics and hate literature provide an environment wherein hate flourishes. In fact, researchers have found that the life span of aggressive impulses increases with ideation.14 In other words, the more often a person thinks about aggression, the greater the chance for aggressive behavior to occur. Thus, after constant verbal denigration, haters progress to the next more acrimonious stage.
Stage 4: The Hate Group Taunts the Target

Hate, by its nature, changes incrementally. Time cools the fire of hate, thus forcing the hater to look inward. To avoid introspection, haters use ever-increasing degrees of rhetoric and violence to maintain high levels of agitation. Taunts and offensive gestures serve this purpose. In this stage, skinheads typically shout racial slurs from moving cars or from afar. Nazi salutes and other hand signals often accompany racial epithets. Racist graffiti also begins to appear in areas where skinheads loiter. Most skinhead groups claim turf proximate to the neighborhoods in which they live. One study indicated that a majority of hate crimes occur when the hate target migrates through the hate group's turf.15

This is where we are now. The hate group has gathered and begun to taut the target. to avoid the cooling off of introspection they single out the symbols of their hate to attack.



NCJRS abstracts

In the second stage, the haters form an identity by using symbols, rituals, and mythology. During the third stage, the haters begin to verbally degrade the object of their hatred, thereby bolstering their self-image as a group. In the fourth stage, in order to maintain high levels of agitation and avoid introspection, the group begins to taunt its target, usually through the use of offensive gestures and racial slurs.

This is what happens on message boards every night on the internet.

Wikiepdia article on hate groups

Hate groups usually assert that the targets of their attacks are harmful to society. Hate groups generally propagate myths, narratives and rumours, playing upon fear, xenophobia, blame or jealousy, with the aim of harming individuals and groups they target, and inciting others to distrust or hate them. The ultimate aim of a hate group is commonly the delegitimization, elimination, and exclusion of groups, or the harm, deportation, or death of individuals. Hate groups often use their victims as scapegoats.

We see this on the net every night, every atheist message board is dominated by the charges that Hitler was a Christian, Christianity is bad for society, God ordered the wiping out of various people', the bogus social science studies like the Zuckerman pretend study that claims "atheist societies" are so much better than religious ones. And now we see the atheists attacking the symbol of their object of hatred, Christmas. A sign was put up at a radio station by atheists trying to destory the beuaty of Christmas. It was placed beside a nativity scene and it said the nativity scene was a myth. This is documented on Cnn.com/living "Missing Atheist Sign Found."

(CNN) -- An atheist sign criticizing Christianity that was erected alongside a Nativity scene was taken from the Legislative Building in Olympia, Washington, on Friday and later found in a ditch.
The Freedom from Religion Foundation had a placard up in the Legislative Building in Olympia, Washington.

The Freedom from Religion Foundation had a placard up in the Legislative Building in Olympia, Washington.
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An employee from country radio station KMPS-FM in Seattle told CNN the sign was dropped off at the station by someone who found it in a ditch.

"I thought it would be safe," Freedom From Religion Foundation co-founder Annie Laurie Gaylor told CNN earlier Friday. "It's always a shock when your sign is censored or stolen or mutilated. It's not something you get used to."

The sign, which celebrates the winter solstice, has had some residents and Christian organizations calling atheists Scrooges because they said it was attacking the celebration of Jesus Christ's birth.

"Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds," the sign from the Freedom From Religion Foundation says in part.

The sign, which was at the Legislative Building at 6:30 a.m. PT, was gone by 7:30 a.m., Gaylor said.

The incident will not stifle the group's message, Gaylor said. Before reports of the placard's recovery, she said a temporary sign with the same message would be placed in the building's Rotunda. Gaylor said a note would be attached saying, "Thou shalt not steal."
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* iReport.com: Over-the-top holiday displays?

"I guess they don't follow their own commandments," Gaylor said. "There's nothing out there with the atheist point of view, and now there is such a firestorm that we have the audacity to exist. And then [whoever took the sign] stifles our speech."

Gaylor said that police are checking security cameras pointed at the building's entrances and exits to see if they can see anyone stealing the sign.

"It's probably about 50 pounds, " Gaylor said. "My brother-in-law was huffing and puffing carrying it up the stairs. It's definitely not something you can stick under your arm or conceal."

The Washington State Patrol, which is handling the incident, could not be reached for comment.

Dan Barker, a former evangelical preacher and co-founder of the group, said it was important for atheists to see their viewpoints validated alongside everyone else's.

Barker said the display is especially important given that 25 percent of Washington state residents are unaffiliated with religion or do not believe in God. (A recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found 23 percent of Washingtonians said they were unaffiliated with a religion and 7 percent said they didn't believe in God.)

Atheists on message boards have said things like "O those evil nasty Christians destroying our poor little sign." But it doesn't dawn on them the sign is an act of hate because it says "you are not allowed to exist in the public square with me. I will not allow you to have your beliefs." Who the hell would get upset at Christmas? They are attacking love, peace, happiness, good toward men. But the reason is because the symbol of the hated target becomes a target for hate. This incident points up a full scale attack on Christmas that has been growing over the years. The symbol of faith as become the target of hate for those who despise faith.

from the same CNN article

"Most people think December is for Christians and view our signs as an intrusion, when actually it's the other way around," he said. "People have been celebrating the winter solstice long before Christmas. We see Christianity as the intruder, trying to steal the holiday from all of us humans."

The scene in Washington state is not unfamiliar. Barker has had signs in Madison, Wisconsin, for 13 years. The placard is often turned around so the message can't be seen, and one year, someone threw acid on it, forcing the group to encase it in Plexiglas.

In Washington, D.C., the American Humanist Association began a bus ad campaign this month questioning belief in God.

"Why believe in a God?" the advertisement asks. "Just be good for goodness sake."

That ad has caused the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to field hundreds of complaints, the group said, but it has heard just as much positive feedback, said Fred Edwords, the association's spokesman.

Edwords said the ad campaign, which features a shrugging Santa Claus, was not meant to attack Christmas but rather to reach out to an untapped audience.

Edwords maintains the campaign began in December mostly because the group had extra money left over for the year. The connection to Christmas is a coincidence, he said.

"There are a lot of people out there who don't know there are organizations like ours to serve their needs," Edwords said. "The thing is, to reach a minority group, in order to be heard, everyone in the room has to hear you, even when they don't want to."

The ad campaign, Edwords said, is to make people think. He said he doesn't expect to "convert" anyone.

But the Christian Coalition of America is urging members to oppose the advertisements.

"Although a number of humanists and atheists continue to attempt to rid God and Christmas from the public square, the American people are overwhelmingly opposed to such efforts," Roberta Combs, the group's president said in a press release.

"We will ask our millions of supporters to call the city of Washington, D.C., and Congress to stop this un-Godly campaign."

Within this year there were a handful of incidence of hate group vandalism to churches in Dallas and East Texas that may have involved atheists. Two of the perpetrators were reading atheist books, and one of the cases of vandalism used atheist slogans.

Hailarius admition from athiest that he has to follow the crowd

I had put up a post chiding an atheist who I thought was more intelligent than average becasue he stooped to mocking and ridiculing an apologist. Here's what anther atheist says to that:

Originally Posted by Metacrock

I don't like to see you stooping to level the common denominator around here. you are better than that.

 Recall:

Your concern is touching, but I have no desire to disavow the secular community on these boards.

Meta:

you are better than that. that guy is a lot brighter than certain people on your side and certainly more so than atheist gives him credit for. 

Recall

I can only judge him by how he presents himself. His posts have been inane and repetitive.

what he's calling inane and repetitive is the fact that the apologist put out certain arguments that beat the atheist point cold and the atheists never answered it so he spent time saying "you didn't answer". so page latter when no one remembered it they got away with just not answering then they start calling his arguments "inane."

Meanwhile, look at that first answer. He actually says he cant' break with the group even though he knows they are wrong!