Atheism/Existence of God Debates (Please Read OP)

J C

gvn wrote: »

If we're both intellectually honest, then I'm as agnostic in my belief that there is no god as you are agnostic in your belief that there is one. Despite this, I'm still an atheist and you're still a theist. Why? Because atheism (or, indeed, theism) and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive, nor are they even concerned with the same issue -- one addresses knowledge, the other belief.

... they both are a combination of belief and knowledge.
I know you guys like to think of your Atheism as based exclusively on logic and knowledge ... but this is clearly not the case ... (your belief in nothing blowing up to produce everything, being a case in point).
... and the findings of Creation Science and ID research (as well as Apologetics, theology and philosophy) provides the mono-theist religions with a logical and knowledge-based foundation ... for their faith!!!:)

J C

J C wrote: »

... they both are a combination of belief and knowledge.

Not exactly. Knowledge (ontological knowledge, I mean to say) is separate to belief. The concepts are only related insofar as it would be foolish to believe in something which one doesn't believe to have ontological standing; hence, atheists.

I know you guys like to think of your Atheism as based exclusively on logic and knowledge ... but this is clearly not the case ... (your belief in nothing blowing up to produce everything, being a case in point).

No. My atheism is based solely on the fact that I don't believe in god. Nothing more, nothing less. It's a belief, not a claim to knowledge (i.e. I'm saying I don't believe in god; I'm not saying I claim that god doesn't exist, as that would imply knowledge which I (nor anybody else) don't have).

... and the findings of Creation Science and ID research (as well as Apologetics, theology and philosophy) provides the mono-theist religions with a logical and knowledge-based foundation ... for their faith!!!

So you're not agnostic?

nagirrac

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Natural selection has nothing to do with the universe or its origins.
The point of natural selection is that once you have replicating DNA, mutations and selection, it means that complexity can come from simplicity. There is no need for any external hand. Previously the most intelligent people in society used to think complexity implies an external hand. But, when science shows that complexity can come from simplicity it rocks that view. It doesn't disprove God but too a lot of people just makes it even more unlikely.


No there are not. The majority of theoritical physicists are atheists. Steven Weinberg for example.

I never said it had. Dawkins uses natural selection as you describe to argue that a simple cause like mutation can lead to complexity in evolution. I happen to agree with this but it is only one little part of the puzzle. Where did replicating DNA come from? Have you seen the calculations for how long it would take for random chemical reactions to come up with a molecule as complex as DNA? Life emerged fairly early in the earth's history, so perhaps DNA came from outer space, who knows.

I think you will find that when asked most theoretical physicists dont even consider God, they are too interested in physics to consider any other subject. When pressed most of them describe themselves as agnostic. I personally favor Einstein's views in terms of rejecting the concept of a personal God but regarding himself as an agnostic and rejecting atheism. Einstein was very critical of strong or positive atheism and if that view was good enough for Einstein it is good enough for me.

The issue I have with most people who describe themselves as atheist is that they are not atheists at all but rather agnostics. A strong atheist is certain of God's nonexistance, and attempts to argue that is not the case confirm one's true position as agnostic. People are too quick to label themselves as atheist, most of them are simply nonbelievers who have no interest in religion or have been turned off by experience of religion but have never even pondered the existance or nonexistance of God.

Elysian

nagirrac wrote: »

People are too quick to label themselves as atheist, most of them are simply nonbelievers

Which makes them atheists.

pauldla

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

I think you might enjoy this post from Edward Feser who I mentioned earlier.



No, I don't see the logical inconsistency. They actually seem like the type of characteristics that might be complementary. Likewise the something less than these characteristics (i.e. not all powerful and not all knowledgeable) would also be complementary - or at least not at odds. Could you explain why you think that these characteristics are logically inconsistent. I'm still not understanding why you think that the Christian God is fundamentally illogical. This is largely because I don't think you have given me much to go on.

Thanks for the considered reply; I’ll preface my comments by remarking that metaphysics is not my strong point.
The link you provided makes interesting reading. Just to clarify, the premise of the cosmological argument is that whatever is contingent, or comes into existence, must have a first cause? And as the universe is indeed in existence, it therefore follows that the universe must have had a previous cause, and that that cause is God?

I don’t see how omniscience can be coupled with omnipotence. The idea of omnipotence itself is on shaky ground from some perspectives, is it not? Otherwise I think they are mutually exclusive, maybe even contradictory. How do you find them complimentary? The usual example given is something along the lines of ‘Does God know what he’s having for breakfast tomorrow? If he does, could he have something else?’

And that is all good and fine. But it still doesn't answer why you think that the notion of a creator God is illogical but are content to wait and see when it comes to the origins of the universe.

Not meaning to be difficult, but I find it hard to understand your question. It is because I think the notion of a creator god illogical that I am content to wait and see.

I'm not expecting you to know how the deepest mysteries of the universe. I just want to understand why you seemingly have no problems when it comes to the other options I presented. It seems to me that something must have eternally existed, and that is why I can't understand why God is illogical in your eyes.

I’m not saying I have no problems with the other options you present: of course they have problems, too. As the man said, the universe is not only queerer that we suppose, it is queerer than we can suppose. Am I being asked to look upon that queerness and call it god?

What makes you think that logic and reality (whose reality, exactly?) is a function of a purely natural existence?

Because logic and reality are usually attributed to nature, and when events transpire that exceed logic and reality, we call them supernatural.


‘Whose reality?’ is a good question, though. Is my red the same as your red?

marienbad

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

I'd agree with that up until you talk about approaches to religions. Logically followed atheism makes certain claims on the reality of existence. By in large I think that these claims are bleak, but that doesn't make atheism wrong. And I suppose people might find freedom in having no ultimate purpose, no God making moral demands and then nothing at the end of it all.

However, this aside, I don't think that atheism says much about how you should approach other religions. When people like Dawkins encourage behaviour like this (it's only 45 seconds long) that is down to his own brand of anti-theism and not his atheism per se.

Why would you think atheism/agnosticism bleak and without ultimate purpose ? And for the most part the very same moral or ethical demands apply to me as they do to you. Why would they not ?

A sense of right and wrong is not exclusive to religion .

Tim Robbins

nagirrac wrote: »

The issue I have with most people who describe themselves as atheist is that they are not atheists at all but rather agnostics. A strong atheist is certain of God's nonexistance, and attempts to argue that is not the case confirm one's true position as agnostic. People are too quick to label themselves as atheist, most of them are simply nonbelievers who have no interest in religion or have been turned off by experience of religion but have never even pondered the existance or nonexistance of God.

A non-believer is an atheist. You don't understand the words atheist and agnostic yourself and then give out about other people who don't understand them.

Here is a definition from Oxford Dictionary:

noun
a person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods:

Tim Robbins

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

I'd agree with that up until you talk about approaches to religions. Logically followed atheism makes certain claims on the reality of existence. By in large I think that these claims are bleak, but that doesn't make atheism wrong. And I suppose people might find freedom in having no ultimate purpose, no God making moral demands and then nothing at the end of it all.

However, this aside, I don't think that atheism says much about how you should approach other religions. When people like Dawkins encourage behaviour like this (it's only 45 seconds long) that is down to his own brand of anti-theism and not his atheism per se.

Good post. Kind of post that makes me have genuine respect for someone with a differing viewpoint. Well thought out and reasonable. Good stuff. You are making an effort where someone who disagrees with you is coming from.

Penn

nagirrac wrote: »

The issue I have with most people who describe themselves as atheist is that they are not atheists at all but rather agnostics. A strong atheist is certain of God's nonexistance, and attempts to argue that is not the case confirm one's true position as agnostic. People are too quick to label themselves as atheist, most of them are simply nonbelievers who have no interest in religion or have been turned off by experience of religion but have never even pondered the existance or nonexistance of God.

The question "Is there a god?" requires a definitive answer. Since nobody can truly say there is absolutely definitely a god, most people (atheists included) would be agnostic.

The question "Do you believe in god?" requires an answer about that person's opinion and belief, so people are either theist or atheist.

I don't believe in god, so I'm an atheist. But I don't know if there is a god or not, so I am also an agnostic.

nagirrac

Tim Robbins wrote: »

A non-believer is an atheist. You don't understand the words atheist and agnostic yourself and then give out about other people who don't understand them.

Here is a definition from Oxford Dictionary:

Atheism is a very complex term to define and simplistic definitions like the above one do absolutely nothing to grasp the range of positions various atheists hold. Yes, clearly atheists do not believe in God, duh.
Various thinkers define atheism differently. Personally I find Michael Martin's definition the best when discussion the subject, a negative or weak atheist is one who lacks theistic (religious) belief and a positive or strong atheist is one who holds an asserted disbelief in any concept of God i.e. an intelligence outside our known universe who created the universe. An agnostic is one who lacks belief or disbelief in a any God. I think Dawkins scale of 1 through 7 is helpful in defining people's beliefs but it is noteworthy that other than people who are 100% theist (1) and 100% certain of the absence of God (7), there is a valid argument that everyone else (including Dawkins who defines himself as a 6.9) is agnostic in that they do not absolutely rule out the possibility of a God.
To me the test is when you speak to people and actually explore their beliefs. There are a lot of "new atheists" who have been turned off by religion and for good reason. However when you speak to many of them it is apparent they have rejected religion and actually have not considered the concept of God at all in their thinking. Most people in this category are agnostics because when you ask do you think there is an intelligence outside our known universe that created the universe and the laws that govern it they will typically answer "I don't have a clue" i.e. they are agnostics.
Strong atheists like Dawkins believe the universe we live in can be fully explained by materialistic science. I personally see no distinction between this view and that held by Lord Kelvin in 1900 that "everything to know about physics is known". The truth is we still know very little about the nature of the universe, a good start would be discovering what constitutes 96% of the matter and energy in the universe that scientists conveniently call dark matter and dark energy.

nagirrac

Penn wrote: »

The question "Is there a god?" requires a definitive answer. Since nobody can truly say there is absolutely definitely a god, most people (atheists included) would be agnostic.

The question "Do you believe in god?" requires an answer about that person's opinion and belief, so people are either theist or atheist.

I don't believe in god, so I'm an atheist. But I don't know if there is a god or not, so I am also an agnostic.

Don't forget deism. Many people reject the idea of a theist God but believe through reason and observing the universe one can believe in a God that designed the universe and the laws that govern it (the Clockwork Universe theory). These believers have no interest in organized religion. I find it easy to reject theist Gods but the more I observe the world around me not so easy to reject a deist God. I would regard myself as a deist agnostic but not an atheist.

antiskeptic

nagirrac wrote: »

Don't forget deism. Many people reject the idea of a theist God but believe through reason and observing the universe one can believe in a God that designed the universe and the laws that govern it (the Clockwork Universe theory). These believers have no interest in organized religion. I find it easy to reject theist Gods but the more I observe the world around me not so easy to reject a deist God. I would regard myself as a deist agnostic but not an atheist.

What's the fundamental difference between a theist God and a deist God other than there being no attempt to describe the character of the latter (although you could make some inferences based on the nature of his creation)

It seems to me that as soon as you say the deist God has eg: "no interest in his creation after having wound it up", you've just made a theological statement about that God. And in doing so, have just formed yourself a religion

equivariant

J C wrote: »

I sometimes wonder if there are any/many 'true' Atheists ... in my experience the dogmatic ones are more correctly classified as anti-theists ... and the non-dogmatic ones are actually agnostics!!!:)

Agnostic and atheist are not in any way contradictory. The vast majority of atheists are also agnostic and there is absolutely no contradiction in simultaneously holding to those positions. Do you understand what the word agnostic means?

King Mob

antiskeptic wrote: »

What's the fundamental difference between a theist God and a deist God other than there being no attempt to describe the character of the latter (although you could make some inferences based on the nature of his creation)

It seems to me that as soon as you say the deist God has eg: "no interest in his creation after having wound it up", you've just made a theological statement about that God.

A deist would be able to point to the fact that it appears that there is no god that interferes with the universe as well as detail the myriad problems with an interventionist god as a basis.

Theists who claim anything about the character of god do so without being able support their notions.

antiskeptic wrote: »

And in doing so, have just formed yourself a religion

Except for all the other many many prerequisite you need to be defined as a religion, such as a stance on an afterlife, clergy, holy days, rituals, dogma, scripture....

Pretty much in the same way atheism alone can't have dogma, deism alone cannot be a religion.

J C

equivariant wrote: »

Agnostic and atheist are not in any way contradictory. The vast majority of atheists are also agnostic and there is absolutely no contradiction in simultaneously holding to those positions. Do you understand what the word agnostic means?

OK ... in the interest of the Plain English campaign ...
An Anti-theist is somebody who is anti-God and anti-believers in God ... some believe God exists ... but don't like Him ... others don't believe He exists and wish to actively oppose people who do.

An Atheist is somebody who doesn't believe God exists and don't wish to oppose people who do.

An Agnostic doesn't have a fixed position on whether God exists or not and some don't care whether He exists or not.

J C

J C wrote: »

OK ... in the interest of the Plain English campaign ...
An Anti-theist is somebody who is anti-God and anti-believers in God ... some believe God exists ... but don't like Him ... others don't believe He exists and wish to actively oppose people who do.

An Atheist is somebody who doesn't believe God exists and don't wish to oppose people who do.

An Agnostic doesn't have a fixed position on whether God exists or not and some don't care whether He exists or not.

An agnostic has to either be an atheist or a theist; agnosticism isn't a position in the middle of some atheism-theism continuum. An atheist lacks belief, whereas a theist holds a belief. Belief does not equal, nor is it synonymous with, knowledge. Despite everything else, one has to either believe or not believe, so one is either a theist or an atheist.

An agnostic is somebody who does not have knowledge about god's existence. In this respect, all honest atheists and theists are agnostic, so describing an individual as agnostic is redundant.

equivariant

J C wrote: »

OK ... in the interest of the Plain English campaign ...
An Anti-theist is somebody who is anti-God and anti-believers in God ... some believe God exists ... but don't like Him ... others don't believe He exists and wish to actively oppose people who do.

An Atheist is somebody who doesn't believe God exists and don't wish to oppose people who do.

An Agnostic doesn't have a fixed position on whether God exists or not and some don't care whether He exists or not.

Complete fail! Please read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_atheism

Tim Robbins

nagirrac wrote: »

Strong atheists like Dawkins believe the universe we live in can be fully explained by materialistic science.

That's a load of crap. Dawkins regularly admits Science doesn't have the answer to everything.

You'd be better off trying to understand poeple's points and opinions and debate them rather than argue against misunderstandings.

King Mob

nagirrac wrote: »

Strong atheists like Dawkins believe the universe we live in can be fully explained by materialistic science. I personally see no distinction between this view and that held by Lord Kelvin in 1900 that "everything to know about physics is known".

You seem to be confusing the ideas of science as the body of collected, accurate and testable knowledge and science as the method of acquiring that knowledge in a way that excludes bias and confounding factors.

So the universe can be fully explained using science; the method, but it is not yet fully explained by science; the body of knowledge.

nagirrac wrote: »

The truth is we still know very little about the nature of the universe, a good start would be discovering what constitutes 96% of the matter and energy in the universe that scientists conveniently call dark matter and dark energy.

But the only way we know about dark matter in the first place is through science. The only hope we have of finding out what it is is also through science.

nagirrac

Tim Robbins wrote: »

That's a load of crap. Dawkins regularly admits Science doesn't have the answer to everything.

You'd be better off trying to understand poeple's points and opinions and debate them rather than argue against misunderstandings.

Try reading and comprehending what people say rather than selecting a segment of a sentence and not just taking it out of context but also misunderstanding it. Of course Science doesn't have the answer to everything, no intelligent person would suggest such a thing, so enough of the superiority bs.
Just to repeat: what I said was that Dawkins is a materialistic scientist (a leading one) who believes the universe CAN BE (not is, can be) fully explained by materialistic science. He reaches this conclusion from his extensive knowledge of existing evolutionary Biology, a far from complete science. The problem with Dawkins is he extrapolates his knowledge in one field to other fields that he is not expert in.
How does materialistic science explain the mind? nothing conclusive
How does materialistic science explain music? nothing conclusive
How does materialistic science explain free will? nothing conclusive
Dawkins has been shown up several times in debates as being ill informed in other scientific areas and even worse dismissive of others work in fields he is clueless on. He is the stereotypical academic pompous ass who knows much less than he appears to.
Science moves forward by brave pioneers who take giant steps, people like Darwin and Einstein who challenge existing knowledge at the time. Dawkins has added nothing to true scientific discovery (what has he truly done other than regurgitate Darwin). He is merely a neo-Darwinist (a follower) who has devoted his life to anti-theist rants. Waste of a good brain in my opinion.

nagirrac

King Mob wrote: »

You seem to be confusing the ideas of science as the body of collected, accurate and testable knowledge and science as the method of acquiring that knowledge in a way that excludes bias and confounding factors.

So the universe can be fully explained using science; the method, but it is not yet fully explained by science; the body of knowledge.

But the only way we know about dark matter in the first place is through science. The only hope we have of finding out what it is is also through science.

Science as we know it is conducted by humans with human brains. Are you excluding the possibility that human brains cannot explain aspects of the universe no matter how hard they try? Einstein was confounded by quantum theory and his search for a grand unifying theory. For all the effort nobody has made much headway since Einstein understanding the apparent parodoxes of quantum theory. The questions are just as perplexing today as they were in 1930.
For all we know the universe is a virtual simulation and only the creator of the simulation knows all the science behind it.

King Mob

nagirrac wrote: »

Science as we know it is conducted by humans with human brains. Are you excluding the possibility that human brains cannot explain aspects of the universe no matter how hard they try? Einstein was confounded by quantum theory and his search for a grand unifying theory. For all the effort nobody has made much headway since Einstein understanding the apparent parodoxes of quantum theory. The questions are just as perplexing today as they were in 1930.
For all we know the universe is a virtual simulation and only the creator of the simulation knows all the science behind it.

First, you probably should start reading up on current physics and the history of physics before you start making such ridiculous claims like those above.
Second, science by definition removes biases including those that arise from
having a human brain. Einstein's theories being the perfect example.

Relativity requires you to think in ways that do not make sense in our normal lifes. In relativity mass, space and time all are mutable. Space is able to stretch and bend. Light has the exact same speed no matter how fast you are travelling.
None of these things make sense to normal experience, but they are all experimentally true.

If science was limited to human biases, how could we have discovered relativity?

nagirrac

King Mob wrote: »

First, you probably should start reading up on current physics and the history of physics before you start making such ridiculous claims like those above.
Second, science by definition removes biases including those that arise from
having a human brain. Einstein's theories being the perfect example.

Relativity requires you to think in ways that do not make sense in our normal lifes. In relativity mass, space and time all are mutable. Space is able to stretch and bend. Light has the exact same speed no matter how fast you are travelling.
None of these things make sense to normal experience, but they are all experimentally true.

If science was limited to human biases, how could we have discovered relativity?

Regardless of how difficult it is, or outside our "normal" experience it is, all science as we know it has been discovered by human brains. There is obviously a great deal remaining to be discovered assuming all of it can be discovered by humans. Where did I mention human bias? I simply stated that due to limitations in our reasoning ability (brains) we may never understand the universe fully. You think thats ridiculous? really, how arrogant is that? We are discovering the laws that govern our known universe that are already there, not creating them. Who knows how wrong our current understanding will be proven in time?
Thanks for the physics lecture but I have read a great deal of physics material old and new but seeing as you are in the mood for explaining could you outline what existed before the big bang and where all that energy and matter came from?

King Mob

nagirrac wrote: »

Regardless of how difficult it is, or outside our "normal" experience it is, all science as we know it has been discovered by human brains.

Yet our human brains, left alone, would not be able to even perceive the conditions that special relativity would effect. But then we know and can show that special relativity is true.
Science is a process that excludes any supposed limitations from our human brains.

nagirrac wrote: »

There is obviously a great deal remaining to be discovered assuming all of it can be discovered by humans. Where did I mention human bias? I simply stated that due to limitations in our reasoning ability (brains) we may never understand the universe fully. You think thats ridiculous? really, how arrogant is that? We are discovering the laws that govern our known universe that are already there, not creating them. Who knows how wrong our current understanding will be proven in time?

And why would we not be able to understand the universe fully?
What could we not understand? How would we be able to tell the difference between something we "cannot understand" and something that does not exist?

nagirrac wrote: »

Thanks for the physics lecture but I have read a great deal of physics material old and new

Then how could you possibly say that there's been no progress in QM since Einstein's time?

nagirrac wrote: »

but seeing as you are in the mood for explaining could you outline what existed before the big bang and where all that energy and matter came from?

I can't outline that as there is yet to be any solid testable theories that describe it.
There are several models which offer good explanation of how the big bang could have arose, all of which coming from the best most current scientific knowledge.
Not knowing is not a problem for science as it is for religions.

Again you seem to be conflating the method of science (testing of predictive models) and the body of scientific knowledge.

The body of scientific knowledge is incomplete and does not yet explain the entire universe. The method of science can be used to eventually explain the entire universe.

Tim Robbins

nagirrac wrote: »

Try reading and comprehending what people say rather than selecting a segment of a sentence and not just taking it out of context but also misunderstanding it. Of course Science doesn't have the answer to everything, no intelligent person would suggest such a thing, so enough of the superiority bs.
Just to repeat: what I said was that Dawkins is a materialistic scientist (a leading one) who believes the universe CAN BE (not is, can be) fully explained by materialistic science. He reaches this conclusion from his extensive knowledge of existing evolutionary Biology, a far from complete science. The problem with Dawkins is he extrapolates his knowledge in one field to other fields that he is not expert in.
How does materialistic science explain the mind? nothing conclusive
How does materialistic science explain music? nothing conclusive
How does materialistic science explain free will? nothing conclusive
Dawkins has been shown up several times in debates as being ill informed in other scientific areas and even worse dismissive of others work in fields he is clueless on. He is the stereotypical academic pompous ass who knows much less than he appears to.
Science moves forward by brave pioneers who take giant steps, people like Darwin and Einstein who challenge existing knowledge at the time. Dawkins has added nothing to true scientific discovery (what has he truly done other than regurgitate Darwin). He is merely a neo-Darwinist (a follower) who has devoted his life to anti-theist rants. Waste of a good brain in my opinion.

Can you explain how that sentence is out of context?
Can you tell us what is a complete or a conclusive science please?
Can you tell us where Dawkins shows he is misinformed?
Why do you keep going on about Dawkins - there are millions of other atheists? Why not go on about some of the ones you are dealing with here?

I am not a Dawkins apologist all I am doing is challenging your ignorance. Where Dawkins' amazing strength is in explaining complicated scientific ideas that other people cannot. Could you? Could anyone you know?

For example, it is very hard to find anything that is as well written as Selfish Gene even though the idea is not completely his.

That's what Dawkins is - he is a brilliant explainer. I actually learnt more about christianity from him then I did from years and years of Catholic schooling and mass attending.

People like you say things things with nonsensical language (dogmatic atheist) imprecise language (universe can be explained by science), get facts wrong and it is difficult to understand what the relevance of what you are saying actually is.

All you have is a nonsensical rant.

Fanny Cradock

What did RD teach you about Christianity?

Tim Robbins

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

What did RD teach you about Christianity?

I never knew all those phrases came from the Bible KJV (last chapters of GD). And I never know the Sermon on the Mount was even called that or how widely respected it was.

Fanny Cradock

What about all the hotly disputed claims he makes about Christianity he makes in the book?

Tim Robbins

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

What about all the hotly disputed claims he makes about Christianity he makes in the book?

Well put it this way I learned more about Christianity than I learnt about Atheism. Most of the atheistic arguments have been already made. He even references the people who made them so I don't have a problem with it. He just has a better turn of phrase.

King Mob

King Mob wrote: »

The method of science can be used to eventually explain the entire universe.

Do you really think that? I'm not so sure, being honest. You can spend all of your time trying to teach a dog algebra, but it's just something it'll never understand, and, more importantly, the dog will never comprehend its inability to understand; our human intellect is limited, so it follows that there's a limit to our understanding and our ability to understand. Perhaps that limit is below what's required to fully understand the universe.