Atheist presuppositions

[Keith C]

I can't possibly be more explicit than to point to the point of the whole article, which was, no genuine (rational) knowledge can be claimed without a metaphysic reality.

Perhaps one of your incorrect presuppositions is that knowledge must be rational, and within a metaphysical 'reality'.
What we seem to find in physics is different areas with limited rationality. For instance, results from classical physics can not be extended and applied to quantum physics.
In each case, we have to start with key observations and build our theories around them.

Perhaps your metaphysical 'reality' is not real at all?

[Objectivitees]

I can't possibly be more explicit than to point to the point of the whole article, which was, no genuine (rational) knowledge can be claimed without a metaphysic reality.

Perhaps one of your incorrect presuppositions is that knowledge must be rational, and within a metaphysical 'reality'.
What we seem to find in physics is different areas with limited rationality. For instance, results from classical physics can not be extended and applied to quantum physics.
In each case, we have to start with key observations and build our theories around them.

Perhaps your metaphysical 'reality' is not real at all?

And just as Shotgun said...

If you admit that the only way my position is false, is if reality is illogical, irrational, and absurd...then I'm fine with that. Just don't expect me to believe your statements about history, or the nature of reality...

So say I.

[Keith C]

I will try again.
Shotgun's statement (from page 6)

It is impossible for the Christian God not to exist. Without appealing to a transcendent, omnipotent, omniscient, triune, and immanent God, who has revealed Himself to His creation...it is impossible to make sense out of the world.

First, ASSUME YOU ARE CORRECT, then the Christian god exists and:-
1. Atheist scientists will never be able to make sense out of the world.
2. Christian scientists should be able to understand the world.
3. Buddhists, Hindus etc have the same problem as atheists.
ALTERNATIVELY:-
Your statement is correct, but the Christian god does not exist. Then we should all be in the same predicament. The material universe may show numerous regularities, but we will not have PROOF that unexpected changes will not occur, ie the sun could implode etc. We would have to rely on the empirical evidence that such events are very rare on a human time scale.

If the second part of your STATEMENT IS FALSE, then:-
1. Scientists of all persuasions should be able to make sense of the world.
2. This would be true whether or not the Christian god exists.

I think some empirical evidence might help to choose between some of these alternatives.

I think you have not posted anything to 'authenticate' the first part of your assertion, "It is impossible for the Christian God not to exist." I suspect empirical evidence would not suffice, so we have to wait to find justifications for your most basic presuppositions.

[Objectivitees]

If the second part of your STATEMENT IS FALSE, then:-

The second part of the statement is not false, nor have you shown it is, so your post is (fallacy of) an irrelevant thesis.

[Keith C]

The second part of the statement is not false, nor have you shown it is, so your post is (fallacy of) an irrelevant thesis.

The second part is "Without appealing to a transcendent, omnipotent, omniscient, triune, and immanent God, who has revealed Himself to His creation...it is impossible to make sense out of the world."
In my post, I was not asserting that it was false, merely that it MIGHTt be false, and it was useful to consider the implications.

I believe the only justification you or shotgun have offered to justify the truth of this assertion is the idea that the material universe might be unpredictable (chaotic?) without a god to maintain order. This still seems very inadequate justification.

[Objectivitees]

In my post, I was not asserting that it was false, merely that it MIGHTt be false, and it was useful to consider the implications.

I know you were talking about that part, but you then asserted a conclusion based on the "falseness" of it, in support of your overall thesis that our position is false, yet you never made an argument on why it is false. My statement stands, you have not shown it to be false, therefore your conclusion and whole post (twice now)are an irrelevant thesis.

[Keith C]

................ but you then asserted a conclusion based on the "falseness" of it, in support of your overall thesis that our position is false, yet you never made an argument on why it is false. My statement stands, you have not shown it to be false, therefore your conclusion and whole post (twice now)are an irrelevant thesis.[/color]

You have avoided my attempts to find the presuppositions lying behind your statement. Since I suspect strongly that the falseness of your statement comes from the errors in your basic presuppositions, I did a little digging.
You may not have derived your beliefs from here (http://www.rae.org/FAQ24.htm ), but the statements from this site seem a possible justification for your statement:-
"A religion may be defined as a worldview, a set of basic premises that define how we understand the world around us and our purpose in it...................
For example polytheists, such as many of the ancient Greeks, believed nature was the plaything of many gods. These gods were capricious and inconsistent in their activities. Thus while polytheists could be excellent observers of nature, they lacked the necessary faith to take the next step and apply their knowledge in a systematic manner with assurance that tomorrow nature would act like it did today.
..........................
Only among the monotheistic cultures was a proper foundation for science laid. Men believed in a lawful universe because they believed in a lawgiving creator of it. So something like modern science is built upon religion, or more specifically on a philosophy of nature that is itself built on religion. "

You seem to go further, asserting that without belief in god, nature itself would be unpredictable.
The only source for this seems to be misunderstanding of the creation story in Genesis. God created the universe and if he does not keep supervising it will disintegrate.
Why not believe in a god so powerful that his creation will stay 'created' - even as it evolves?

[Objectivitees]

You seem to go further, asserting that without belief in god, nature itself would be unpredictable.

Once again, you completely misrepresent our position to make an argument against your strawman.

We never say nature is unpredictable, we say you (the Atheist) have no way of knowing.

Address that Keith, because the argument is not about the nature of our presuppositions, it's about your presuppositions, (we're not avoiding, you are)no matter how much you want to shift it. Once again, (three strikes and you're out) irrelevant thesis.

[jms]

Ok, I'm back after having chewed on Manion's paper for a bit. But first, Keith, well done digging that up. We indeed believe that it is a belief in God which leads to a belief that nature is predictable, and therefore lays the foundation to science ("authenticates" logic and science). This isn't to say that an atheist can't hold those beliefs and do excellent science, but our beliefs give an a priori reason that science should work. By O Tees's acount, an atheist worldview doesn't give a reason to expect that science will work, but since it obviously does, he joins in the game.

As to Manion, my atheist critic has come through his dark night of the soul, and is unfortunately back with guns blazing. The problem with the paper shows up when the inconsistent naturalist asks the consistent one about robots learning not to run into walls. Consistent's answer is that this knowledge is superficial and does nothing to solve the epistemological problem, which is exemplified by the fact that a river running toward the ocean doesn't know anything, and our thoughts are fundamentally no different.

I think that Consistent has missed the distinction between an adaptive system and a non-adaptive system. For our purposes, let me define an adaptive system as a system which uses past experience to choose present actions in order to achieve a goal.

To set up a ridiculously simple example, Manion argued that the river knows nothing. Ok, I think that's because it's not an adaptive system; it responds to its immediate environment without recourse to past experience. But let's go just the slightest bit further and consider a glass of water. If we consider the system as the boundaries of the water, I submit that the goal of a glass of water is to preserve the patterns of motion of whatever it comes in contact with. If I put a piece of popcorn on the surface of the water and swish it in a circle for a minute, then the water learns that the popcorn is circling clockwise at some rate. I can take the popcorn out for a few seconds, and when I drop the popcorn back in, the water will use its memory of the movements of the popcorn and make the popcorn continue circling as it was. Granted my glass of water is of limited intelligence, and can only comprehend no movement, swirling movement, and oscillations, but that's not bad for just water. Further, if I have two glasses of water, and I swirl the popcorn around in one glass and then drop the popcorn into the other glass, it will just sit there. This is because the second glass didn't experience the popcorn like the first one did, and so it didn't know any better. The first glass clearly knows more than the second glass.

By this definition of knowledge, purely deterministic systems can still have knowledge, and, although we don't usually think of a glass of water as knowing anything, I think the definition generalizes nicely to robots and people. So I don't see why determinism destroys knowledge.

[Keith C]

Once again, you completely misrepresent our position to make an argument against your strawman.

We never say nature is unpredictable, we say you (the Atheist) have no way of knowing.

What I believe you have maintained is that if it were not for the continuing presence and actions of your god, then all sorts of unexpected and strange things would disrupt the regularity which science finds in nature.
That seems to me the only reason which leads you to conclude that god exists from your presupposition.

[Objectivitees]

What I believe you have maintained is that if it were not for the continuing presence and actions of your god, then all sorts of unexpected and strange things would disrupt the regularity which science finds in nature.

No, Kieth, what you "believe I have maintained" is your misunderstanding of what I have argued. I only made the argument that Atheism is irrational, because it has no explanation for the existence of Logic. Theism can have an explanation. As a corollary, I argued that since logic cannot come from the Atheistic (naturalistic) worldview, when an Atheist uses Logic, he quite ironically argues for the truth of the opposing proposition.(Theism) This is true, because if logic cannot come from a natural worldview, it necessarily comes from a Theistic one, as there are no other options available. (Law of excluded middle) Therefore, in order for an Atheist to use Logic as if it were true, (to support his position) he would have to assume (presuppose) it is true in the worldview from which it came. In order to be true in that worldview, Logic tells us that the whole worldview would also have to be consistent with logic's truth in order for Logic to be true. (That worldview must be true)Therefore, since the Atheist presupposes that Logic is true, he presupposes the worldview it came from is also true.

That seems to me the only reason which leads you to conclude that god exists from your presupposition.

Emphasis added.

There would also be the point that since Atheism cannot be true, Theism must. As you can see, I can approach the problem from the Atheists presuppositions, not just mine. So, it's not "only" my presuppositions that lead me to the conclusion.

The reason I argued this way Kieth, is because JMS asked in his original post, whether his axioms "save rationality" for the Atheist. The answer is still no.

[Keith C]

No, Kieth, what you "believe I have maintained" is your misunderstanding of what I have argued. I only made the argument that Atheism is irrational, because it has no explanation for the existence of Logic. Theism can have an explanation. As a corollary, I argued that since logic cannot come from the Atheistic (naturalistic) worldview, when an Atheist uses Logic, he quite ironically argues for the truth of the opposing proposition.(Theism) This is true, because if logic cannot come from a natural worldview, it necessarily comes from a Theistic one, as there are no other options available. (Law of excluded middle) Therefore, in order for an Atheist to use Logic as if it were true, (to support his position) he would have to assume (presuppose) it is true in the worldview from which it came. In order to be true in that worldview, Logic tells us that the whole worldview would also have to be consistent with logic's truth in order for Logic to be true.................Therefore, since the Atheist presupposes that Logic is true, he presupposes the worldview it came from is also true.

You and shotgun seemed to be agreed and this statement by shotgun on page 3 of this thread seems to assert that a 'overarching metaphysical scheme' is needed to ensure that 'nature' can not do something unexpected. I think that is exactly what I was claiming as your position. If you disagree with shotgun, now would be a good time to clarify the difference,
[quote ="shotgun"]"God does NOT exist...only nature!" says the Atheist...and so the Christian replies: "Well then...if the Christian God does not exist, and nature is all that guides us, then there is no consistent overarching metaphysical scheme guiding the motion of all particular objects (from angels to arsonists)" Since there is no overarching scheme guiding nature...A could randomly stop being A! (The law of identity isn't a necessary truth then...it's only contingent on some aspect of nature that keeps it consistently true.)

So...the real rub here...is over our disagreements concerning the nature or reality itself. Any statement concerning the consistency and applicability of logic, is really an implicit statement about the nature of reality! You cannot divorce discussions of epistemology from a discussion of metaphysics Keith. Even the axioms you posited presuppose various things about the nature of reality. If you want to arbitrarily hold them as foundational axioms...then fine...admit at the outset that you're arbitrarily excluding God from your system...but don't pretend like you're accounting for logic without alluding to the Christian God, because even your axioms allude to a consistent overarching metaphysical scheme...a scheme the atheist must account for if He is going to deny the existence of God."[/quote]