Why are you an Atheist? - Catholic Answers Live - 12Nov2018

[Damian]

This is comparable to a fish not knowing what water is: the fish only ever experiences water, and therefore does not recognize water as its environment.

Can the fish investigate water at all? Can the fish detect water in its experienced reality at all? If it can’t, then it is not justified to hold that as a true belief about reality. It can imagine water and have an internally logically consistent model of water, but when referenced to its reality, if it can not demonstrate its idea of water, then it’s not justified to have a model of reality reflect water as part of that reality at all. That is defining something into existence.

 

[Damian]

The question for you is: How do you get out of this reflective cognitive mode, and into that cognitive mode in which Faith is natural?

Faith is the excuse people use to hold a belief about something when they don’t have a justified reason to. If they did, then it’s just called a belief.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

Incorrect. Faith is what we use to describe belief in something which is outside of the scope of our understanding. We have very sound, rational, logical philosophical proofs that gives us plenty of reason to believe in God. What we do not have is the physical evidence you desire, at least not while you are unwilling to entertain the in depth study of miracles.

Fortunately for us, physical evidence is not the only way to come to know that something is true.

 

[Damian]

“God, if you exist, please give me faith to know so.”

Every atheist, including me, have all ran these experiments. All we get is white noise back. Lack of the deity manifesting itself in reality is evidence of the conclusion that it is not there. We can’t conclude that we know it isn’t there 100% but it is evidence that it isn’t there. Just like an empty room is evidence that there is no chair in there, but the theist could have done something to the chair that makes us not be able to detect that it is there. But since the atheist investigated the room and found no chair, they are justified in believing there is no chair there until reality demonstrates otherwise.
Why three months? Your deity knows what I am looking for and can provide it. So one request should be fine right?

 

[Wesrock]

Roguish:

The question for you is: How do you get out of this reflective cognitive mode, and into that cognitive mode in which Faith is natural?

Faith is the excuse people use to hold a belief about something when they don’t have a justified reason to. If they did, then it’s just called a belief.

Eh, that’s more my understanding of the Protestant use of faith. For Catholic, it generally means trust, in addition to belief.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

I know other people have tried this. I am not concerned with them. I am concerned with you. After all, you must recognize that failure to produce a given result in an experiment does not prove, conclusively, that that result is not possible. IT only means that that was not obtained as a result of that instance of the experiment. Just because one person looks in the room and finds no chair doesn’t mean you won’t find a chair when you look in your room.

I am asking if you, personally, would be willing to give this experiment an honest attempt? Do not rely on the experiences of others, engage in the process and attempt the experiment on your own. After all, being that you are incapable of knowing the other people’s minds, you cannot conclusively say that they were not engaged in biased reporting when writing up their conclusions. The only way you’ll be able to know is if you undertake the experiment yourself.

Like I said though, I’ve got to go. I’d like to slow down and point-by-point this conversation with you. (the whole debate, not just this experiment) If you’d be willing to, please send me a pm. I find a lot more can be done when you’re able to focus on one set of topics at a time. Sadly, these open forum posts tend to make that difficult.

 

[Damian]

Because if he was, he would be a finite

Wrong, the deity can still reveal itself to us and still be a deity. This is not a logical impossibility like a square circle. Your assertion that it can’t is just as valid as my assertion that it can. You’re the one making a logic claim about reality that you can not demonstrate is there at all. Sorry but reality is the reference for what is possible about reality, not your inferred logical conclusion. Otherwise your hypothesis will always be correct without ever having to test them right? That’s not how you come to justified models/beliefs/conclusions about reality claims.

 

[Wesrock]

Sorry but reality is the reference for what is possible about reality

Exactly.

10 char

 

[Damian]

Yes you can logically conclude that there must be a first cause. What that is, we don’t know. Why can’t it be universe creating pixies that self destruct once they choose to create the universe? They were always there up until they exploded to create the universe as well.
One of the problems about being “before time” is that doesn’t make logical since. What does it mean to exist in negative or zero time?
To me, existence is necessarily temporal and able to be detected in reality in some way. Otherwise you are just defining something into existence.

 

[Aquinas11]

Wrong, the deity can still reveal itself to us and still be a deity.

No Catholic believes in that type of deity, instead every Catholic believes God transcends reality. So your claims just became hollow bullets to God of Catholics.

 

[Damian]

So you’ve just defined a deity to be unable to be detected in reality in any way. That is one of the requirements to have justified belief about something when your belief is in reference to the model of reality. Reality has to demonstrate its existence some way to us.

 

[Aquinas11]

So you’ve just defined a deity to be unable to be detected in reality in any way

No, he didn’t define God that way. Catholic faith did. But feel free to avoid addressing that God.

 

[CaptainPrudeman]

They were always there up until they exploded to create the universe as well.

That violates the idea that everything has a beginning, unless these pixies transcend physical reality and the rules of this universe, i.e. they exist outside of it.

 

[Damian]

We contrast built by people vs naturally occurring by contrasting build objects by people to naturally occurring objects. But first we demonstrate that a person can be a painter in the first place. Then we demonstrate the painting they created has not been discovered anywhere in the natural world so far. If your deity created everything, there is nothing natural to contrast that against. You are painting the bulls-eye around your arrow here. Presupposing the deity first and then building your argument to fit your conclusion.
Also, how could you demonstrate the difference of a naturally build wood dam in a river and a dam, that looks exactly the same, but was built by people? You couldn’t unless you had evidence that shows the people actually building this dam.

 

[Damian]

How can you possibly conclude any of this other than just saying “god did it”. It’s just god of the gaps until you can demonstrate a causal link. Your “miracle” bucket to throw in everything you want to be supernatural is just everyone else’s “we don’t know” bucket since we can not determine the cause or when we do determine the cause, the religious move the goal post again.
Ex: The wind blows due to a deity. No, actually is the sun heating and the vacuum of space cooling the planet. Oh, ok, then its the deity creating the sun to heat and space to create the wind. It’s an infinite regression since we don’t know everything.

 

[Damian]

Same way Einstein observed reality, created a logical mathematical conclusion about gravity waves. We looked for them, but were not justified in believing they actually exist until we found them in 2015.

 

[Aquinas11]

But first we demonstrate that a person can be a painter in the first place

No you can’t demonstrate that, because you’re only allowed to look for “evidence” of the painter in the painting, per your logic.

 

[Damian]

So you’ve just defined your deity out of justified belief of its existence since you can not ever demonstrate that it exists at all. Okay, if all we need is internally logically consistency, then Hogwarts exists. Your process for concluding the difference between fantasy and reality is broken. You can not actually demonstrate the difference between the two since all I have to do is fix my logic about why Hogwarts is real, but not actually have to demonstrate that it is there. This is how religion evolves and its arguments evolve as science, with its 100% track record, has never discovered or demonstrated a link to the supernatural about anything. Religion, to stay relevant, has to keep updating its supernatural claims, so we’re all the way back to a place where we can’t ever study it at all now. That’s progress of a sort it seems.

 

[Aquinas11]

So the only way to demonstrate God’s existence is through logical deduction, hence Aquinas’ 5 ways.

1. Things are caused by previous things (you and I are caused by our parents, our parents are caused by our grandparents, etc)
2. Either there had to be a first cause to everything or there is an infinite time chain of causation going backwards. The latter isn’t logical , plus Big Bang evidence tends to indicate the former
3. The first cause cannot be a physical or finite entity, since the mere fact that it is physical or finite requires it to have certain characteristics (X) and hence requires a prior cause that caused it to have characteristics X, as opposed to characteristics Y. Hence the first cause cannot be a physical or finite entity, and we call that “God”

Why don’t you address the above arguments? Is it because there is no counterargument?

 

[Damian]

Faith is what we use to describe belief in something which is outside of the scope of our understanding.

No argument here, you’re just repeating what I stated: an unjustified belief. It’s outside of our understanding to hold a belief that a 7 will appear on a 1d6 dice roll, regardless of the logical arguments for it. Reality demonstrates this to be the case every time.
Truth: 1+1=2 is true because its abstract and not in reference to reality. 1 apple plus 1 apple is 2 apples is a demonstration of this abstract concept and is a true statement in reference to reality. You can have all the truths you want if you are not referencing demonstrated reality. But if you are referencing reality for your truth claim, then sorry, but no you are not justified in holding your logical conclusions as truth until you can demonstrate it. Reality is the bar for its truth, not your logic.