Atheists delusional?

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Christianity and Atheism are both the same. They both rely on faith and reason. The primary difference between the two is this.

The Christian relies on faith and reason.
The Atheist relies on reason and faith.
 
I’m not sure how to multi-quote so i’ll just reply to your points. The value of objective truth is of course up to the individual, we might not value mathematical objective truths but they are still objective truths. My point is however in terms of objective truths and subjective truths we subjectively value objective truths over subjective truth, that was my point and i hope i didn’t explain that awkwardly lol. Also i don’t understand why you ask what is the value of humanity to a non human? You have to plea like everyone does everyday for society to respect your human value especially when an injustice has been done against you no matter how minor.
 
Where is the lack of reason that intelligent beings were created by an intelligent God?
 
I am a Christian and I rely on reason.

I understand that reason is the application of logic from one (or more) presumed truths to the likelihood of a further presumed (but slightly less tenuous) truth.

Each use of reason derives more presumed truths which are less and less sure as with each iteration of reason there is :

(1) the objection that reason has been applied correctly or
(2) that the reasoning is 100% comprehensive rather than just giving a probable new derived truth or
(3) that all of the ‘presumed truths’ from which it is derived are in fact true themselves.

The more iterations of reason one applies the necessarily greater the faith in one’s own perspective has to be.

This is true for all philosophies.
 
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lisaandlena said:
So what happens when you begin with only those things which you can know to be true?

Do you even know what those things are?
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Excellent question.

There is a very good argument to be made that when it comes to the nature of reality that there is very little that we can know for sure. It comes down I believe to the likelihood of certain truths.

If we accept different ‘initial truths’ as being more rational than others it will be very difficult to find agreement even though each are using reason (from different assumed truths).
 
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My friend, I too am Christian, Catholic.

We do not perform math in philosophy, multiplying probabilities to get a percentile and fill the missing gap percentage up with what we call faith. What we do is start with a beginning, and end up at the therefore end. The beginning is always man, the end is ultimately either man or God. The path one takes through those questions from beginning at man, is dependent on how we view the possibility of God in the first place. If there is no chance of God, we will never journey through that, and we will end up with a faith of sorts.
 
lisaandlena said:
Exactly!!

So what “truths” are there that you can be absolutely certain are true?
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I exist.
There is a reality beyond me.
I did not create that reality.

I have certain perceptions that may or may not square with truth regarding that reality and myself.

In order to derive other truths I need to accept my perceptions as being a somewhat accurate view of reality. This is the first iteration of logic which ‘waters down’ the sureness of subsequent ‘derived truths’.

Science is based on perceptions. Following from above I would accept scientific results on reality as a guide towards understanding that reality.

In this reality what we call ‘logic’ has a sound record of predicting success and so I accept logical thought from perception to derive ‘accepted truths’ although this is another layer of acceptance that ‘waters down’ my sureness of further derived truths.

This logic tells me that the logic itself may not be universal but only applicable to my perceptions. There may be a greater reality where my logic is incomplete or flat out incorrect. I suspect this is so due to the limitations of my observed reality creating and sustaining itself as a closed system.

Everything that I derive has caveats attached to it and the more reasoning I do the greater the caveats.
 
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lisaandlena said:
How do you know that you didn’t create it?

I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you, I’m just asking you to support your claim that you “know” that you didn’t create it.

How do you know?
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Because I am ignorant of how it works. I am also constantly surprised by things.

If I created all that there is I would not be ignorant of how it works or be surprised by any of it. I would be in complete control of everything since I created (and am constantly creating) everything.

If I am surprised by something, or do not comprehend it then I would say there is a reality beyond me that is not of me.
 
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The point is I don’t know everything about how the mind works. If I am the one creating reality I should know, otherwise there is another ‘me’ beyond me which by definition is separate from me.

For example, I do not know what you will write back to me saying, or if you will write back at all.

If I am creating all reality I should know this.

If we say that I really do know this but somehow am not telling myself what you will say then this ‘me’ can properly be described as a different entity, beyond me.
 
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I do believe there are different aspects to knowledge. That which we are consciously aware of (say the CPU if you like) and those that are sub conscious (say a secondary RAM).

Sorry I am a computer person among other things.

But through reflection, prayer, meditation etc I can come to know these subconscious things about myself.

No matter how much reflection I do I will not know for certain who will win the first horse race next week or even know who the runners will be without looking at the racing papers, or even know how many papers list the races etc etc.

If I don’t know these things then this reality is beyond me and not created by me.

As I said, even if it were true that I created this reality, because I have no knowledge of this it can properly be said that now there are two me’s. The me that knows these things and the me that doesn’t.

I think it is fair to say these are (now) two different entities and so the me ‘me’ is not the creator of all things but the other me. (whose probably better looking).

I’ll stop replying for 10 mins or so to let the replies catch up as we are each replying while the other is typing.

I’ll just go to the kitchen now and ask my other self what replies he has waiting for me and ask that I don’t outfox myself.

That’s the other thing. Sometimes I lose arguments. I don’t think I am losing them to myself. I am losing them to an entity beyond myself that I didn’t create.

ok, I’ll stop for 10 minutes.
 
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No. You are baiting, that is not battle.

“How do you know I exist” is not reason. And taking one little statement of a larger context to reply to is not debating. Should you feel like actually debating I am sure there are people wiling to do that.
 
And there is that one little quote ignoring the rest. I don’t call that understanding.
 
To answer the above question of how do I know that I exist.

I would say that I do actions, I perform verbs. To perform actions is to exist.

Those actions may be rationalising, choosing, or running down the road.

To do things is to exist.

To the second question. We are talking about creating all that there is. Yes to create all that there is including a constant framework for being, one would have to have knowledge of this.

As I mentioned above. In theory if one was to create the framework for being without knowing how this is done then it could properly be said that there are now two ‘me’ entities and I am the one who is not doing the creating.

If there is a being who continually creates reality there has to be a knowledge and will for that to happen. Or there has to be something else beside that being which facilitates the framework for being.

Which ever way we go, we can make the case that it is not ‘me’ in the sense of my own consciousness. My conscious mind does not will creation or understand how I am creating it. Since there would only be me in this scenario, my conscious being would have to know, otherwise the creator is beyond my conscious being.

That is, it is another being.

ok I will read and respond to your replies but my make believe friend has just invited me to have a make believe drink with him at his make believe house. 🙂

I am so tired of willing these things into existence and then willing myself to forget that I am doing this. 🙂

back in a few hours.
 
Multi-quote is easy. Just quote the whole post and then break it up so that you have the start quote tag and end quote tag around the bits you want to quote… let me see if we have the code tag so I can show you:
Code: 
[quote="Paddy1989, post:145, topic:474016"]
I’m not sure how to multi-quote so i’ll just reply to your points.
[/quote]

Multi-quote is easy!
I like to put the start quote in the clipboard, so I can then just CTRL+V it at the start of each new quote.
You can also just select a bit of text from the main body of the thread and then click the Quote button that appears near that selection.

[quote="Paddy1989, post:145, topic:474016"]
The value of objective truth is of course up to the individual, we might not value mathematical objective truths but they are still objective truths.
[/quote]

I'd say that mathematicians value them. Pythagoras gave us a mighty tool.
How cute, this thing adds colors in code mode… I wonder which programming language it’s trying to colorize…
Paddy1989 said:
My point is however in terms of objective truths and subjective truths we subjectively value objective truths over subjective truth
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Seems reasonable, if you consider that an objective truth is one that is agreed upon by many people or an authority.
You open yourself up to the famous ad populum falacy, but I must admit that it is also very similar to the main mechanism in science: peer review.
Paddy1989 said:
Also i don’t understand why you ask what is the value of humanity to a non human?
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If the value of humanity is as objective as mathematics, then a non human would value humanity just as much, no?
 
But you ignore so much of what he said, and focused instead on one little statement as your come back. Do you believe that to be fair? As I say state your philosophy and we can discuss.
 
Of course, landl, many atheists (myself included) are strictly speaking agnostic. We know we cannot know, but since nothing in our experience provides evidence that God exists we choose, for all practical purposes, to ignore the possibility. That’s why I prefer to call myself a non-believer.
 
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