The Absurdity of Atheism

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antunesaa said:
Good point. In the end there is nothing more persuasive, more real, more undisputable than the conscious personal experience. (Some people will tell me that such intuition is an illusion. I don’t believe them.) The tragedy is that you cannot convey it to anyone in an even remotely faithful way. And, at least in my personal experience, consciousness is incredibly powerful when you are young - say, ten or twelve years old. The knowledge of yourself at that age is as pristine and sharp as a crystal mirror. Too bad the mirror becomes blurry as you grow older.
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I agree with you, I don’t see how consciousness could be possible without God. I have heard the same thing from atheists, that it is just an illusion. Such a claim is contrary to the very core of the human experience, which in my opinion cannot be trumped. It is irrational to refuse to believe in consciousness and free will just because the idea conflicts with one’s personal philosophy and view of the universe. I cannot choose not to believe in what I experience every day. But as I have found, many atheists are often in the habit at dismissing good arguments without giving any real reason at all, and claiming there is not enough evidence for things that are blatantly obvious.
 
inocente said:
I think we’re now talking semantics, since ultimately nothing happens without God.
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How is the expression of truth a matter of semantics?

In any case, it is good that we recognize this truth above. That is the whole point.

👍
 
inocente said:
Intelligent design is one long argument from ignorance, neither good religion nor good science. As you like quotes from scientists, here’s a couple from the Catholic Monsignor Georges Lemaître:

“God cannot be reduced to the role of a scientific hypothesis.”
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I don’t know of any Catholic who wants to reduce God to the role of a scientific hypothesis.

That would be the fallacy of atheists who are victims of scientism, that God must be reduced to the role of a scientific hypothesis or else God does not exist.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
I don’t know of any Catholic who wants to reduce God to the role of a scientific hypothesis.

That would be the fallacy of atheists who are victims of scientism, that God must be reduced to the role of a scientific hypothesis or else God does not exist.
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You can’t really blame atheists for this one, actually. The way I see it, it is the theologists who do this when they assert that God is the explanation for why the world is the way it is. Naturally, when someone tells me “I know something about God, and God explains all the features of the world” I’m going to ask them to show their work and predict some features of the world based on what they know about God.

If you really object to reducing God to a hypothesis, then you must abandon the idea of God as an explainer of this world’s features.
 
JapaneseKappa said:
You can’t really blame atheists for this one, actually. The way I see it, it is the theologists who do this when they assert that God is the explanation for why the world is the way it is. Naturally, when someone tells me “I know something about God, and God explains all the features of the world” I’m going to ask them to show their work and predict some features of the world based on what they know about God.

If you really object to reducing God to a hypothesis, then you must abandon the idea of God as an explainer of this world’s features.
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You don’t understand what I said. I said God is not a “scientific hypothesis”.

God is a theological and philosophical hypothesis, and has been for millennia. I know you understand the difference between a philosophical and a scientific hypothesis. Intelligent Design hypothesis is rooted in logic and observation. It is the most reasonable explanation for abiogenesis, whereas science is wholly incapable of proving that life first appeared by an accidental, undirected collocation of atoms and molecules.

Catholic and non-Catholics of most major religions have acknowledged the legitimacy of God as a hypothesis. Even Einstein acknowledged God as a philosophical (not scientifically proven) necessity. He used philosophical reasoning to arrive at this conclusion, as have many other scientists.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
You don’t understand what I said. I said God is not a “scientific hypothesis”.
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The instant you claim that God has explanatory power with respect to observable properties of this world (as theologians do when they say that God explains why this world exists instead of some other one) you have set up a shop in science-ville.

You can’t say “I have a hypothesis that makes empirically verifiable claims, but you can’t use science to empirically verify it because my hypothesis is special!” I’m not saying that **all **God-hypothesis are scientific, only that this one is.

This is what I am hearing from you:

Philosopher: I can use what I know about philosophy to predict the color of the sky.

Scientist: Ok, do it; make your prediction. Then we’ll verify if you’re right.

Philosopher: That’s not fair! My hypothesis is special and you can’t test it!
 
JapaneseKappa said:
. . .If you really object to reducing God to a hypothesis, then you must abandon the idea of God as an explainer of this world’s features.
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God is no more of a hypothesis than is one’s spouse.

God explains the existence of things and why they exist.

In particular, through ones relationship with Him one understands the who’s and why’s of one’s own existence. Those sorts of questions demand reality; unless a idea leads to that end, it will not do.

If we are to speak in terms of a hypothesis, it would boil down to one’s understanding of God, and it is tested in every moment as the relationship is deepened and one grows in Christ.

You gotta walk the walk. It’s hard to do but Jesus made the journey easier and available to all
 
JapaneseKappa said:
The instant you claim that God has explanatory power with respect to observable properties of this world (as theologians do when they say that God explains why this world exists instead of some other one) you have set up a shop in science-ville.
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Which theologians do that?
 
JapaneseKappa said:
The ones that invoke the cosmological argument for God.
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Science does not explain the existence of things.
It is basically an operating manual.
If you want to understand the structure of existence, what and why things are rather than what they do, you have to leave modern science behind.
 
The absurdity of atheism is at its most spectacular when it is based on the assumption that the** physical **universe can explain itself. Self-creation is an extremely economical hypothesis but it is also impossible to verify, falsify, predict, utilise or reproduce. In other words it is valueless, purposeless and meaningless…

“Nothing shall come of nothing…” King Lear
 
tonyrey said:
The absurdity of atheism is at its most spectacular when it is based on the assumption that the** physical **universe can explain itself. Self-creation is an extremely economical hypothesis but it is also impossible to verify, falsify, predict, utilise or reproduce. In other words it is valueless, purposeless and meaningless.…

“Nothing shall come of nothing…” King Lear
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Yet, it could be fact. I doubt it…you doubt it…but neither of us can offer any more, or less, proof than an atheist.

John
 
Charlemagne_III said:
You don’t understand what I said. I said God is not a “scientific hypothesis”.

God is a theological and philosophical hypothesis, and has been for millennia. I know you understand the difference between a philosophical and a scientific hypothesis. Intelligent Design hypothesis is rooted in logic and observation. It is the most reasonable explanation for abiogenesis, whereas science is wholly incapable of proving that life first appeared by an accidental, undirected collocation of atoms and molecules.

Catholic and non-Catholics of most major religions have acknowledged the legitimacy of God as a hypothesis. Even Einstein acknowledged God as a philosophical (not scientifically proven) necessity. He used philosophical reasoning to arrive at this conclusion, as have many other scientists.
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Aloysium said:
God is no more of a hypothesis than is one’s spouse.

God explains the existence of things and why they exist.
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By definition (OED), an hypothesis is “a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation. (In philosophy, a proposition made as a basis for reasoning, without any assumption of its truth.)”

For Christians, God is not and never has been an hypothesis by either of those definitions. God is a person, we do not pray to an hypothesis, we do not praise an hypothesis. Some atheists call it the God hypothesis, Christians never have.

Aloysium - I agree He is real but think that by saying God explains existence, you could be misinterpreted as proposing Him as an hypothesis.

Charles - a scientific hypothesis is just an hypothesis which can be tested empirically, and any hypothesis which “is rooted in logic and observation”, as you said above of ID, must obviously be able to be tested empirically or it is a fallacy.
 
inocente said:
For Christians, God is not and never has been an hypothesis by either of those definitions. God is a person, we do not pray to an hypothesis, we do not praise an hypothesis. Some atheists call it the God hypothesis, Christians never have.

Aloysium - I agree He is real but think that by saying God explains existence, you could be misinterpreted as proposing Him as an hypothesis.
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God is a person. Persons live in relationship. God is person who desires relationship.
In order to have relationship among persons, the persons must reveal themselves to one another.
God takes the initiative to reveal himself. He does this fully in the person of Jesus.
Jesus is the “Logos” of God. God is reason-able. God can appeal to man’s reason, and to man’s heart. Not that he is fully comprehensible as a person. No.
But he approaches humanity and asks us to enter into the mystery he reveals.
He is a person, not a hypothesis, but he does answer the fundamental questions of life:
Where did I come from,
Where am I going,
Why am I here
Who am I?

So in that sense God does more than “explain” existence. He gives us our full meaning and being.
 
clem456 said:
God is a person. Persons live in relationship. God is person who desires relationship.
In order to have relationship among persons, the persons must reveal themselves to one another.
God takes the initiative to reveal himself. He does this fully in the person of Jesus.
Jesus is the “Logos” of God. God is reason-able. God can appeal to man’s reason, and to man’s heart. Not that he is fully comprehensible as a person. No.
But he approaches humanity and asks us to enter into the mystery he reveals.
He is a person, not a hypothesis, but he does answer the fundamental questions of life:
Where did I come from,
Where am I going,
Why am I here
Who am I?

So in that sense God does more than “explain” existence. He gives us our full meaning and being.
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It was only the line “God explains the existence of things and why they exist” in the context of the surrounding posts.

But agreed, ordinary people believe in Christ, not in a cosmological argument. 🙂
 
inocente said:
It was only the line “God explains the existence of things and why they exist” in the context of the surrounding posts.

But agreed, ordinary people believe in Christ, not in a cosmological argument. 🙂
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👍
The “why” would relate to meaning and being rather than natural scientific explanation.
 
NM505StKate said:
What I am confused about is how atheism, defined as such dictionary.com/browse/atheism , says nothing about the universe or other topics brought up. Wide assumptions are being made.
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The very fact that atheism says nothing implies that it has no explanation which is hardly a rational basis for choosing how to live. In other words it is a defective position to adopt. At least agnostics have the humility to admit they don’t know whether God exists.

In practice atheists usually regard the universe as self-explanatory…
 
tonyrey said:
The very fact that atheism says nothing implies that it has no explanation which is hardly a rational basis for choosing how to live. In other words it is a defective position to adopt. At least agnostics have the humility to admit they don’t know whether God exists.

In practice atheists usually regard the universe as self-explanatory…
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It is the ultimate “non-serviam”, recognizing nothing transcendent outside itself, and rejecting any objective meaning and purpose, outside itself.
Yet it would subject others to itself, by it’s mere statement “there is no God”. It atheism did not propose a belief for others, why would it say “there is no God” and desire to discuss and debate it?

It is a giant and persistent “no”, and the struggle to assert this no.
 
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