How to respond in debate with atheist?

[Russell_SA]

More of an intuition based on what he said. But, it seems we will never know whether i was right or not. I am more interested in how you define atheism. What is your world view? To me atheism is a philosophical system. It is a way to view the world around you and it comes with its own set of assumptions and beliefs about the world. It means more than just saying that the supernatural does not exist. Because it holds a materialistic view of the universe. It says nothing but the matter exists. So it is a reductionist philosophy. It’s not just a denial of the supernatural but it also seems to claim that only the physical material world exists.

Atheism has a number of consequences as well. It seems to lead to a fatalist view. Since if your mind is nothing more than chemical reactions then free will is an illusion. And love is also an illusion if it is nothing more than chemicals. Yet, in our every day lives we experience making choices. And we experience love as more than a chemical reaction. So it does not fit with our everyday experience.

In addition, even some atheists will admit that the universe seems designed. So it goes against what intuitively seems to be true. Do you believe that intelligence created the universe or that the universe created intelligence? It doesn’t seem to me that we can arrive at intelligence without an intelligence to begin with.

What is your view of Christianity?

Please see reply 138 on what atheism is. It is a tentative conclusion about a single question on a specific topic. It has no world view, tenants, leaders, creeds, etc. I understand from the soup of religious that you swim in that it is hard to not apply that to the identity of atheism, but please believe me when I say this.

You can be spiritual and still an antitheist.
You can be culturally religious and an atheist.
You can be atheist and a philosophical naturalist.
You can be religious and a philosophical naturalist.
Etc.

Atheism is the conclusion one reaches after applying their understanding of reality and logic to the question and the data presented.
Such as:
Bob, “Hey Jenny, I talked telepathically with Frank yesterday.”
Jenny, “Who’s Frank?”
Bob, “Frank is an entity that I believe interacts with reality in no detectable way other than through my mind.”
Jenny, “Well how is that different than just having an active imagination? Based on what you presented about Frank, I don’t believe Frank is there at all.”
Bob, “Well you must be an A-Frankist, that means your world view is X, your philosophy is Y, your moral system is Z.”
Jenny, exasperated, “Yeah that follows…”

Now what to do about that understand is where you can start looking at world views. Some world views, this issue doesn’t matter as to the right or wrong of social welfare issue. Just as someone’s religion wouldn’t matter in the right or wrong of social welfare issues. If they keep their religious practices to them selves and then engage in the secular democratic discussion of the rights and wrongs of social issues, is an example of that. Quakers are a good example of those groups.

 

[Russell_SA]

Well, belief in God doesn’t infringe on the realm of science, so why would it have to meet the criterion of falsifiability?

And I’m certain that you believe many things–many!–which can’t be falsified, so one has to wonder why this demand exists for belief in God…

I just want the same evidence that someone presents about their wife as I do for a deity. I can actually meet this person. We all know what is required to have a relationship with someone new, but when that someone new comes across as not there at all. We can’t have a relationship with that person can we?

The claims of when this deity interacted with reality is a direct infringement on science. We can go look at events that interact with reality to see what the causal links could be. But every time we do go look at those events, we never come back with evidence of magic or another realm of existence. So I’m just withholding judgement until that time comes. Nothing wrong with that. Just as I’ll wait till I can interact with this deity just as the same as I could with someone’s wife. If I get into trouble for withholding my judgement until that point comes, then that’s not my problem that your deity is immoral.

 

[Russell_SA]

Please show me a falsifiable test that proves my experiences are causally related to an external world. I am concerned that accepting any such test as valid requires first assuming that there is a causal relationship already, thus making it a circular argument.

I don’t go into absolute knowledge only justifiable knowledge. We could be in a computer simulation on someone’s desk, but since I can’t tell a difference, I can only interact with how I understand my reality works and is. So your experience are fine for you, but they are hearsay to everyone else. That is not enough to justify to me that hogwarts exists in a reality where there are not examples of falsifiable, repeatable tests to confirm that there may be magic at all.

 

[Russell_SA]

You see a balloon rising. Is that sufficient evidence to conclude, at least with reasonable certainty, that the contents of the balloon are “lighter” (or less dense) than the air outside of it?

I can tell people that is what I saw, then leave it up to the scientific experts to study that. I’m not an expert in reality, physics, etc. All I can say is that I believe I experienced that event. It would take a lot of evidence to make me doubt that though. Now if I experience a dragon flying overhead, then I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t take as much evidence to doubt that experience was real.

 

[Wesrock]

I don’t go into absolute knowledge only justifiable knowledge. We could be in a computer simulation on someone’s desk, but since I can’t tell a difference, I can only interact with how I understand my reality works and is. So your experience are fine for you, but they are hearsay to everyone else. That is not enough to justify to me that hogwarts exists in a reality where there are not examples of falsifiable, repeatable tests to confirm that there may be magic at all.

I’m not trying to use my anecdotal evidence as proof of the divine. My point is that you accept at least one thing, the causal relationship between your experiences and an external outside world, even though the connection is not falsifiable. Would you agree with that much?

 

[Wesrock]

I can tell people that is what I saw, then leave it up to the scientific experts to study that. I’m not an expert in reality, physics, etc. All I can say is that I believe I experienced that event. It would take a lot of evidence to make me doubt that though. Now if I experience a dragon flying overhead, then I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t take as much evidence to doubt that experience was real.

Well, by knowing the properties of different gasses, the rubber of the balloon, gravity, that dense air sinks beneath less dense air, you can at least conclude that the balloon’s rising is not uncaused, that the rubber itself is not intrinsically capable of rising in such conditions of itself, and so the rising of the rubber that makes the balloon must therefore have an extrinsic explanation.

 

[Russell_SA]

I’m not trying to use my anecdotal evidence as proof of the divine. My point is that you accept at least one thing, the causal relationship between your experiences and an external outside world, even though the connection is not falsifiable. Would you agree with that much?

As I understand it, scientists look at the situation and then make a list of reasons as to what would be causing that. They then run tests that are falsifiable. If the tests do not falsify their assumption, they keep digging deeper into their assumption to see how far they can go with it till it breaks. If it never breaks, then they feel justified in concluding their assumption is the current causal link to continue to recreate that event they experienced. It’s always tentative, but they publish their findings as the best current explanation for that repeatable event. If in the future we learn something more, then we’ll change that conclusion. But it’s always tentative conclusions, not absolutes. Mathematics and logic deal in absolutes.

 

[Wesrock]

As I understand it, scientists look at the situation and then make a list of reasons as to what would be causing that. They then run tests that are falsifiable. If the tests do not falsify their assumption, they keep digging deeper into their assumption to see how far they can go with it till it breaks. If it never breaks, then they feel justified in concluding their assumption is the current causal link to continue to recreate that event they experienced. It’s always tentative, but they publish their findings as the best current explanation for that repeatable event. If in the future we learn something more, then we’ll change that conclusion. But it’s always tentative conclusions, not absolutes. Mathematics and logic deal in absolutes.

That doesn’t seem to apply to the point I’m making. You accept that your experience is caused by an external world, correct? That is not falsifiable. It’s not testable.

 

[Russell_SA]

Well, by knowing the properties of different gasses, the rubber of the balloon, gravity, that dense air sinks beneath less dense air, you can at least conclude that the balloon’s rising is not uncaused, that the rubber itself is not intrinsically capable of rising in such conditions of itself, and so the rising of the rubber that makes the balloon must therefore have an extrinsic explanation.

I assume you what you mean by extrinsic explanation is that the external environmental forces are moving the balloon up and not the balloon itself. I can go with that.

 

[Russell_SA]

That doesn’t seem to apply to the point I’m making. You accept that your experience is caused by an external world, correct? That is not falsifiable. It’s not testable.

I can not tell a difference from an external world and, I’ll assume, an internal one. So my default position is that it is an external world. Because I am not convinced that I would create the music in the world that I can’t stand to listen to. I have to be able to tell a difference some how between the two.

 

[Wesrock]

I assume you what you mean by extrinsic explanation is that the external environmental forces are moving the balloon up and not the balloon itself. I can go with that.

And it should be able to rule out some items that are incapable of causing the balloon to rise. Being weighted down would not cause it to rise, or my eating an apple wouldn’t have any effect on the matter. In any case, some things can be eliminated as possible causes.

 

[Russell_SA]

And it should be able to rule out some items that are incapable of causing the balloon to rise. Being weighted down would not cause it to rise, or my eating an apple wouldn’t have any effect on the matter. In any case, some things can be eliminated as possible causes.

Based on our current understanding of reality as the reference point of logical conclusions without running that test, then yes I can go with that.
brb out to lunch.

 

[Wesrock]

I can not tell a difference from an external world and, I’ll assume, an internal one. So my default position is that it is an external world. Because I am not convinced that I would create the music in the world that I can’t stand to listen to. I have to be able to tell a difference some how between the two.

If, instead of saying “external world,” I simply said you accept that there are real things that are not your experience but which have a causal effect on your experience, would that be clearer?

 

[Wesrock]

Based on our current understanding of reality as the reference point of logical conclusions without running that test, then yes I can go with that.
brb out to lunch.

Let’s ignore claims of the Christian God in general, and just look at a broader focus of theism. No claims of supernatural occurrences.

The cosmological arguments of the classical theists are similar to balloon example type of thinking. It takes what we have and what we know, and eliminates any thing that is insufficient to explain what we have. It works in a negative fashion. And I don’t mean crossing out specific items on a list that already has the name God on it. It’s broader considerations. For example, and I’m jumping to the end, not presenting an argument: there must be an explanation, but the explanation cannot be extended in space, or have had a beginning, or be many, or be susceptible to change or being moved… We take this negative approach, and we don’t then say, “hey, look! God is still on our list, therefore we equate the two!” We say, “there is something that is the cause, but is itself not extended in space, or moved, or caused, or many, or capable of decay. We can’t really say much more about it than that, but the word we will apply to this explanation, of which we can really only rule out certain qualities, is God (not as a name).” (You could call it the X-Quantity or whatever if you wanted, the name doesn’t matter). Or so the arguments go.

Now, to be clear, I haven’t given any cosmological argument in this post. I haven’t myself gone through any eliminative process here (or delved into why “the explanation” cannot be extended in space and therefore why all such things eliminated, for example). I only wish to say that is how the arguments go, and they are out there for research (though the short versions generally don’t give enough background). In a way, they can be “disproved,” if you can demonstrate a place where the argument went wrong. Kind of like a mathematical proof, but not as definitive either way.

 

[Russell_SA]

Let’s ignore claims of the Christian God in general, and just look at a broader focus of theism. No claims of supernatural occurrences.

The cosmological arguments of the classical theists are similar to balloon example type of thinking. It takes what we have and what we know, and eliminates any thing that is insufficient to explain what we have. It works in a negative fashion. And I don’t mean crossing out specific items on a list that already has the name God on it. It’s broader considerations. For example, and I’m jumping to the end, not presenting an argument: there must be an explanation, but the explanation cannot be extended in space, or have had a beginning, or be many, or be susceptible to change or being moved… We take this negative approach, and we don’t then say, “hey, look! God is still on our list, therefore we equate the two!” We say, “there is something that is the cause, but is itself not extended in space, or moved, or caused, or many, or capable of decay. We can’t really say much more about it than that, but the word we will apply to this explanation, of which we can really only rule out certain qualities, is God (not as a name).” (You could call it the X-Quantity or whatever if you wanted, the name doesn’t matter). Or so the arguments go.

Now, to be clear, I haven’t given any cosmological argument in this post. I haven’t myself gone through any eliminative process here (or delved into why “the explanation” cannot be extended in space and therefore why all such things eliminated, for example). I only wish to say that is how the arguments go, and they are out there for research (though the short versions generally don’t give enough background). In a way, they can be “disproved,” if you can demonstrate a place where the argument went wrong. Kind of like a mathematical proof, but not as definitive either way.

So basically we apply our discovered logic of this reality to the idea of the possible reality before the big bang. I don’t know if our logic would work there though. I’ll just wait till we can study that realm before making any life changing conclusions about reality. I’m fine waiting till there’s more information. Object A = Object B only after you have the same experience in reality of object A and object B. I can’t logically understand how there could be negative time for example. How can something exist in negative time. But this is getting into an argument that always comes across to me as just a logical exercise but goes beyond the application of the applied conclusion in my life. It’s like arguing over the 20th and 500th decimal place of pi, but in real application of life, we don’t need anything more than the 5th decimal place.