The Absurdity of Atheism

[Solmyr]

Ah, and here is another one: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=5433151#post5433151… definitely an obsession. I am sure we could find some more, if we started to do some digging.

 

[tonyrey]

I guess, you don’t see it. Atheism is the default position: WYSIWYG - what you see is what you get. The alternative hypothesis only has legitimacy if you can PROVE, not just “assume” that minds - without body - DO exist. Go ahead, make my day.

Nonsense!

Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible **posits **comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer.’’

Willard Van Orman Quine - *Two Dogmas of Empiricism

*Quinewas an atheist but he realised that we infer the existence of physical objects from our perceptions. The default position is the reality of **mind **not matter.

 

[tonyrey]

Ummmm…you just described The Absurdity of Theism!
.

Prove it!

 

[tonyrey]

No scientific experiment has ever demonstrated that a molecular structure can produce purposeful activity, let alone that which is conscious and autonomous! The blind Goddess is a hopelessly inadequate substitute for the Source of truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love…

It proves atheism is an unsupported hypothesis.

Second…you are saying atheism is absurd because there is no scientific proof for it.
But there is no scientific proof for a God, either.
So then, why isn’t belief in a God absurd to you, too?

Science is based on the validity of reason and the intelligibility of the universe which are metascientific facts that cannot be explained by science.

You don’t need scientific proof to believe in something…but you need scientific proof to show that something doesn’t exist?
Now t**hat’s absurd.
This makes no sense.

Non sequitur.

First–even if no scientific experiment has demonstrated the above…that doesn’t mean a God exists.

Second…you are saying atheism is absurd because there is no scientific proof for it.
But there is no scientific proof for a God, either.
So then, why isn’t belief in a God absurd to you, too?

You don’t need scientific proof to believe in something…but you need scientific proof to show that something doesn’t exist?
Now t**hat’s absurd.

Atheism implies that Chance and Physical Necessity explain the existence of truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love which is absurd because belief in Chance and Physical Necessity presupposes the existence of truth!

 

[tonyrey]

What evidence is there for atheism?

None! It is impossible to demonstrate the absence of a Supreme Mind because we are using our minds to discuss the existence of minds! Take away the ladder and you’re back where you started: with your mind and nothing else…

 

[tonyrey]

Is this your “idée fixe”, tony? At least one other thread was submitted with the exact same title as this one… here: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=987591&highlight=atheism just last year. (Though I have to admit that the capitalization of the words is different.) And the same applies to your favorite “mindless, purposeless” molecules… is this your obsession? The funny thing is that someone always takes it seriously, and EXPLAINS the whole concept of emerging attributes… but to no avail. Humans are NOT merely a bag of chemicals, they are NOT just a pile of molecules.

With equal vacuity I could state that your atheism is your “idée fixe”, Solmyr.
“the whole concept of emerging attributes” is just that: a concept and nothing more…
Demonstrate that thought consists solely of neural impulses - if you can…

 

[tonyrey]

Lack of beliefs amounts to nihilism which in practice is impossible for any rational being.

Such as?

People who don’t believe in a god don’t think their lives or life in general is meaningless.
I read more posts on this forum by theists that sound way more nihilistic than any atheist I know.

Evidence?

1. The history of the universe
2. The life, death and resurrection of Christ
3. The development of the Church into an international organization based on the teaching of Christ

The above are your arguments that a God exists?
If these were sound arguments, then everyone would be theists…and all theists would follow just one religion.

Non sequitur. Why isn’t everyone an atheist?

Actually, research into the above three points are pretty much what has turned me into an atheist!!!

Why?

 

[tonyrey]

No scientific experiment has ever demonstrated that a molecular structure can produce purposeful activity, let alone that which is conscious and autonomous!

Is bleeding a purposeful activity? Or is it the product of Design?

Perhaps what you meant was no scientific experiment has ever demonstrated that anything other than a molecular structure can produce purposeful activity.

No!

But what does this have to do with theism or atheism? From one molecular structure to another, please explicate yourself.

If we consist solely of a molecular structure how do you explain purposeful activity?

 

[tonyrey]

So your argument is:

We don’t understand consciousness, therefore God is responsible for it, therefore God exists?

That is transparently a God of the gaps argument, but I’ll take you up on it. If we do discover the chemical and mathematical basis for consciousness, you will abandon theism, right? After all, your argument for his existence will have been concretely invalidated.

I, on the other hand, will accept theism if we fail to find a chemical/mathematical basis for consciousness. Naturally, we’ll need a time limit to decide when failure occurs, and 2035 sounds like a nice conservative limit.

It sounds to me like a science of the Big Gap argument! In other words an appeal to ignorance… whereas we have constant, immediate evidence of our conscious, intangible mind which infers the existence of chemical and mathematical laws.

 

[tonyrey]

As I said in an earlier post, many atheists are humble, open-minded, and also very fulfilled in their lives.

But also, on the flip side…many theists can be self-important and close minded…and not be fulfilled in their lives.
So an atheist could draw a connection between these observations to show that a god does *not *exist.

Both arguments are examples of the genetic fallacy!

 

[tonyrey]

Just pointing out that it is the theistic theories that rely on assumptions that at best have no experimental evidence, and at worst fly in the face of all our experience. Such as minds existing without bodies.

 

[Aloysium]

On another thread Tony wrote about the surrealistic phantasy that is materialism.

It most certainly is frustrating trying to penetrate that filter of limited and contradictory dichotomies which distort more than they can ever clarify when we lift our eyes to what is above.
In that world of images and ideas only loosely connected to the real, we may find excluded even that which is most and irrefutably real, one’s personal existence in relation to everything other.

Obvious and unprovable is the vision of entire universe as a hierarchy of relatedness, bosons to atoms, to unicellular creatures, to plants and animals, and ultimately ourselves.

The material relatedness here is in all the material interactions involved not only in the electronic web which we use to communicate, but the neurological structures that interact to form the words and ideas that are contained within the wholeness that is the person.
A person who is a spiritual being grounded in a relationship with Existence itself, and whose capacity to relate enables him/her to understand that which we are here and now, more or less are sharing.

Within that surrealistic world of materialism the spiritual is relegated to the trash bin of the supernatural. But, that person is here and somewhere inside I imagine is hoping to step outside the box of disconnected and contradictory ideas.

Reality requires no proof, but it needs to be sought, and somewhere other than in a world of illusion.

 

[tonyrey]

Sure, people have found lots of interesting details about the brain and our knowledge is increasing every day. But you said that we have a clear picture of what consciousness is, and are just missing some details. That is not the case. If anything, it’s the exact opposite. We’ve made detailed descriptions about a bunch of individual trees, but we don’t yet have a good picture of the forest.

Now you’re not even bothering to make the full God of the Gaps argument and simply making assertions. What I’m hearing is:

It is obvious to Aloysium that we have a supernatural component, therefore we have a supernatural component.

We have direct experience of our consciousness which is intangible.Everything else is supposition. Charity begins at home - in our mind.

 

[tonyrey]

On another thread Tony wrote about the surrealistic phantasy that is materialism.

It most certainly is frustrating trying to penetrate that filter of limited and contradictory dichotomies which distort more than they can ever clarify when we lift our eyes to what is above.
In that world of images and ideas only loosely connected to the real, we may find excluded even that which is most and irrefutably real, one’s personal existence in relation to everything other.

Obvious and unprovable is the vision of entire universe as a hierarchy of relatedness, bosons to atoms, to unicellular creatures, to plants and animals, and ultimately ourselves.

The material relatedness here is in all the material interactions involved not only in the electronic web which we use to communicate, but the neurological structures that interact to form the words and ideas that are contained within the wholeness that is the person.
A person who is a spiritual being grounded in a relationship with Existence itself, and whose capacity to relate enables him/her to understand that which we are here and now, more or less are sharing.

Within that surrealistic world of materialism the spiritual is relegated to the trash bin of the supernatural. But, that person is here and somewhere inside I imagine is hoping to step outside the box of disconnected and contradictory ideas.

Reality requires no proof, but it needs to be sought, and somewhere other than in a world of illusion.

The key word is “person”. That is our primary datum and sole certainty. We infer the existence of everything else including other persons.

 

[tonyrey]

Ah, and here is another one: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=5433151#post5433151… definitely an obsession. I am sure we could find some more, if we started to do some digging.

You’re obsessed with my so-called obsession! Why isn’t your atheism an obsession? Does it have special privileges?

 

[Solmyr]

Originally Posted by Solmyr

And this, ladies and gentlemen of the jury is how tony “imagines” a thoughtful response. Just look at the depth of his “analysis” and the almost-never-missing exclamation point. As if shouting at others would lend legitimacy and support to his remark.

Just show me a “mind” without a “body”, buddy.

---

PS. I have to congratulate you on your 20,000th post.

 

[Bradski]

If we think like the egoist, for example, that everything exists just for our benefit and no one else’s we are due to have a shock.

So what’s with all the arguments for fine tuning? For whom has it been fine-tuned?

And organise themselves so that they have hindsight, insight, foresight and the power of self-control?

Some guy called Darwin worked all this out some time ago. Keep up, Tony.

As I said in an earlier post, many atheists are humble, open-minded, and also very fulfilled in their lives.

Ah well…two outa three ain’t bad.

Science is based on…metascientific facts that cannot be explained by science.

I can’t think of anything sensible to say about that.

 

[Rhubarb]

This thread has sort of mesmerized me. I’ve been following it but I don’t really want to chime in because it’s so scattered.

Tony - perhaps compiling your points into an argument in one piece would help people understand what you’re trying to say? Your answers to objections are sort of flippant without any substance and I’d like to see your thought process from beginning to end.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Consciousness is a felt experience. We do not deduce anything about the existence of consciousness. No books have to be written to prove that we are conscious.

Nobody is denying that earthquakes exist, but that doesn’t mean they are caused by Poseidon. If all we knew about earthquakes was what they felt like, we would not actually understand earthquakes.

I am saying all the same things about consciousness. We know it exists. We know what it feels like. We do not understand it.

Books can be written to show the nexus between mind and matter. But even at the point of the Big Bang all the possible books were published in advance just by the establishment of physical laws that consciousness itself can grasp. The book of nature’s laws is a consciously written book, or it could not be a consciously understood book. Are molecules conscious of themselves? No, but they are intelligently designed to work together through time toward the creation of a self-conscious being who can make sense of molecules.

This is a strange response. I’m not sure that I’ve ever heard the argument:

If some pattern or object is intelligible, it must be the product of intelligence.

It seems profoundly shortsighted and demonstrably wrong. I would accept that in our daily life, intelligibility suggests a thing is intelligent designed, but it is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for having an intelligent design.

 

[Aloysium]

The key word is “person”. That is our primary datum and sole certainty. We infer the existence of everything else including other persons.

I would agree in part.
We know the other when we love them.
We cannot imagine who the other person is in themselves more than as being someone like ourselves.
No solipsism, just degrees of relating perfected in love.