Several questions

[Pope_Noah_I]

Note the bold part of your reply. This attitude is directly opposing the command of Jesus to love your enemy.

Could it be that you have the wrong objective?

My objective is the last part of my reply. In a time where faith is really under assault, not from extremist mullahs or radical secularists, but by the elite scientific community, I want to give the Church a viable, logical set of arguments to defend the Faith with. In my own life, where I am currently facing a crisis of faith unlike anything I have ever experienced before, I need intellectual satisfaction. I need to be told that everything is going to be okay by my fellow Christians, but, instead of finding reassurance, I have found intellectual laxity and outdated, illogical arguments. For my sake, and for the sake of the entire Church, I am asking for answers to these very real, very problematic assertions by the atheists. All I hear, however, is nonsense. And its shaking me to the very core of my being.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

relentless assault of modern empiricism

empiricism is a self refuting and therefore false standard of truth that no atheist can get around. let me demonstrate.

the empirical claim that all knowledge arises from the senses, is itself knowledge that did not arise from the senses.

see how easy that was? you can cut the entire foundation for scientifically based atheism right out from underneath them.

this comes from an educational system that doesnt teach philosophy, logic, or critical thinking skills. its not really their fault, its just drilled into them so much that they cant imagine that it is a false idea.

and philsophy, and our current apologetics are certainly not convincing the experts.

what experts?

I know CAF hasn’t done anything to convince me of the irrationality of materialism,

materialism is based on the empirical claim, which as i demonstrate above is false because it is self refuting.

the existence of free will,

free will is tested literally trillions of times per hour by the billions of humans beings on Earth.

if the universe is deterministic, then all the those free will events had to be accounted for in every previous state of the universe.

if the universe is indeterministic, then all those free will events are completely random.

both situations are laughable, one points to design, the other magic.

if we apply occams razor, the most parsimonious answer is that we simply have libertarian free will.

If I may say so, its time to step it up

then lets do so!

 

[davidv]

My objective is the last part of my reply. In a time where faith is really under assault, not from extremist mullahs or radical secularists, but by the elite scientific community, I want to give the Church a viable, logical set of arguments to defend the Faith with. In my own life, where I am currently facing a crisis of faith unlike anything I have ever experienced before, I need intellectual satisfaction. I need to be told that everything is going to be okay by my fellow Christians, but, instead of finding reassurance, I have found intellectual laxity and outdated, illogical arguments. For my sake, and for the sake of the entire Church, I am asking for answers to these very real, very problematic assertions by the atheists. All I hear, however, is nonsense. And its shaking me to the very core of my being.

I can tell you that eveything will be OK. Are willing to wait until the second coming? In the mean time there will be much to cause us to stumble if we choose to let it.
If you become intellectually satisfied, will that be enough? I don’t think so. Those attacking the Church will not be swayed with rational arguments. There is amply evidence of this in this very forum.
What is needed is Love, sacrificial love.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Those attacking the Church will not be swayed with rational arguments. There is amply evidence of this in this very forum.
What is needed is Love, sacrificial love.

that sizes it up pretty well. we constantly demonstrate that atheism is a faith, it is a position held by desire not by rational dissection of the issues.

 

[tonyrey]

What’s relative about a child being tortured, raped and murdered?

Morality based on “biologically-based sentimentalities” is useless. Most of the evil and suffering in the world is caused by the rejection of moral values. Criminals think if they avoid being caught they can do what they like with impunity. The only effective way to deter them is to make them realise that when they harm others they do far more harm to themselves. If we are not humane we become inhuman. It is insanity to think we can have one law for ourselves and another for everyone else. Moral laws are not arbitrary rules but necessary conditions of our personal development. If we become corrupt we are like rotten fruit which becomes poisonous and detestable, social outcasts who cannot co-exist with anyone else. So much for the notion of “biologically-based sentimentalities”. They are worthless…

For example, in the Congo, cannibalism is seen as just another routine component of existence, as complete amoral. How can anyone argue for an universally innate sense of morality in light of this?

Ignorance of the value of life does not prove that life is valueless. It merely demonstrates the need for education…

If you lost your freedom you would soon realise it’s no illusion.

Granted, this question is not one of my more competent areas, and personally, from personal experience, I find it highly unlikely that there is no free will. However, there are, as I said, psychologists and biologists who know a great deal more than I about the workings of the brain and how it translates into consciousness, that deny the existence of free will. They should be taken seriously and honestly engaged, not simply dismissed by wishful pseudoscience and willful ignorance of the facts.

You are assuming that the mind is merely the workings of the brain yet we infer the existence of the brain and every other physical object from our perceptions. **Our sole certainty **is what we experience directly within our mind. All knowledge is based on introspection and self-knowledge. So much for the speculations of psychologists and biologists…

If everything is purposeless everything is meaningless - including the assertion that everything is meaningless!

That very well could be. I see no explicit reason to believe that human existence and cognition are in any way meaningful. Nor do many scientists.

In that case all your thoughts and statements are in no way meaningful! How can you obtain meaning from that which is meaningless?

So love is worthless? A reaction over which we have no control and which is no more significant than gravity… In that case life is worthless as well. Why bother to go on living?

Again, I ask, why should we consider it to be meaningful, beyond the fact that we want it to be?

Why do you want life to be meaningful? Why do you want** anything**? Are all our desires meaningless and pointless? That is the logical conclusion of your rejection of reason…

I would not trust an atheist’s opinions on mysticism. But their scientific conclusions are worth hearing and engaging.

I’m glad you believe mysticism has some value, perhaps even that it is a form of knowledge far more valuable than science which tells us nothing about how to live…

Truth does exist. Empirically, testably, verifiably. That is truth.

You haven’t explained what it is. Where is it? In the brain?

If by truth you mean something that transcends the physical realm and gives an objective purpose to life, I have yet to see convincing evidence to support it.

If you cannot explain what it is and where it is located - and it does not transcend the physical realm - there is no reason to believe it exists.

Again, I want to emphasize that I am a Catholic, and I want nothing more than to have a solid argument to rub the atheists face in, and confirm all that we believe. However, wherever I look, it seems that our philosophy, our worldview and our religion are crumbling under the relentless assault of modern empiricism and philosophy, and our current apologetics are certainly not convincing the experts. I know CAF hasn’t done anything to convince me of the irrationality of materialism, the existence of free will, or mind-body dualism. If I may say so, its time to step it up and engage modern thought, both scientific and philosophical, on its own terms and give the faithful a viable philosophy in the modern world, not a pathetic rehash of long-refuted arguments and sentimentalities.

Who are the “experts”? What is their expertise? Understanding Ultimate Reality? Do they have privileged insight we lack? Can they advise you on how to find happiness and fulfilment? What contributions has “modern thought” given to humanity? All the injustice, violence, bloodshed and unnecessary suffering and death? Abortions, broken homes, the misery of one-parent families, race riots, violent crime, abortions, neglected old people, social injustice? If you believe this is an improvement on “a pathetic rehash of long-refuted arguments and sentimentalities” you are welcome to your opinion but I don’t share it. Your progress to “a viable philosophy in the modern world” is a pathetic illusion if you think it can be based on “biologically-based sentimentalities”… You say you want to confirm “all that we believe” but since you see **no explicit reason to believe human existence and cognition are in any way meaningful **your whole view of reality amounts to nihilism… and provides a solid foundation for a viable philosophy of precisely nothing…