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

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Damian said:
Those aren’t the effects of a deity, its the affects of Thanos and his infinity stones. Also internally logically consistent argument that can not be demonstrated in reality.
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To me, there is good reason to believe A) in a first principle, a creator, etc. As you point out, it’s unclear that this has anything to say about whether it can be perceived in some way or whether it corresponds to something that represents it in the physical world, or whatever.

So one position, which is obviously not the Catholic one, is that there is some sort of first cause or creator but that there is no real way of knowing what it is, or whether it matters that we acknowledge it. So it may as well be Thanos for all we care.

My reasons for believing that B) the Catholic faith is true aren’t in themselves part of my reasons for believing in a God. (Well, I’d say there is a connection there but getting into that would be beside the point.) I see reasons to believe in the resurrection, for example, and then from there reasons that the Catholic Church specifically is the form of Christianity that I should practice, and so on. For me, the connections between the two are evident and enough for me to believe.

I don’t think people of faith have access to some all-encompassing argument that shows beyond any conceivable doubt that what they believe is true.
 
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Sorry I’m booked up in the Avenger’s series for now. Its your series, you tell me since you’re making the claim that your thanos is actually real.
 
God may have revealed Himself just a little to me because I asked. That’s all. I was sincere and in need and He responded in many little ways in the course of my day to day life. We can all ask.

I can assure you that God is real. But I have spoken to several people who adamantly refused to believe in God and nothing seems to change their mind. That’s a shame to me, but probably part of His divine plan. And when you ask us to dig deep and justify our beliefs it serves God since in doing so we consolidate our faith and it becomes stronger. A man who believes in God has a fortification that no man or other can breach.
 
Arwing said:
I don’t think people of faith have access to some all-encompassing argument that shows beyond any conceivable doubt that what they believe is true.
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Not asking for a silver bullet. The theory of evolution doesn’t have one silver bullet as well to make it true either. Its a conglomeration of data from multiple branches of scientific study. How about just starting with demonstrating that the realm of the supernatural is there at all. Then we can go from there to see if its universe creating pixie’s home land, Thanos’ retirement cottage, Greek gods on Mount Olympus, etc. Hope you see why your reasons for believing don’t work for me. I have other criteria that I use, and have served me well, for holding a justified internal belief model of reality in comparison to what reality demonstrates about it. Having a relationship with a deity is irrelevant to believing it exists though.
 
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Believing in god is completely separate from deciding to respect it. I just want to have an internal model of reality to match actual reality as accurately as possible. If there’s a deity or deities in it, great fine, still going to live my life as I understand it should be lived. I believe people in Australia exist as well, even though I have no relationship, positive or negative, with them.
 
You conceded by “deity” you mean something that “physically manifests itself”, hence not talking about God of Catholicism. Its not that you lost the game. You haven’t even come onto the field.
 
Damian said:
I just want to have an internal model of reality to match actual reality as accurately as possible.
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Agreed. As accurately as possible, where possible is the key word. We have but five senses and we can’t see many phenomena that even our limited science has proven to exist. Other exists of which we know nothing.

We should live our lives as we think fit, unbeknownst to us we are guided and if God reveals Himself to you it will be for a purpose I’ve no doubt.

I’m glad you have an open mind about this and I hope that you will be given the gift of faith and all that goes with it.

God bless and peace be with you.
 
It has the ability to reveal itself in reality some detectable way if it has the ability to do anything. So this is the difference between religious mindsets and skeptics it seems. The religious are wanting a deity to be there, even though they define it in a way that can not be demonstrated to be part of reality in anyway and the skeptics think this is a broken way to come to justified belief about a claim about reality.
 
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Damian said:
…can not be demonstrated to be part of reality in anyway and the skeptics think this is a broken way to come to justified belief about a claim about reality.
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…any way… except for philosophy, which you have summarily rejected throughout this entire discussion. You will never find answers if you are unwilling to accept that your definition of evidence is over-limiting, and self-refuting.
 
I reject the idea that you can use philosophy to define something into existence. Or did you ignore that point after mentioning it multiple times?
Again, for the readers that cherry pick what they want to read in this discussion, philosophy is language that first came from observing what reality demonstrates to be possible. Such as observing 1 apple and another apple to have 2 apples. Now we create “philosophical language” to look at that logical truth without those specific nouns. You get: 1+1=2. Then we create language around that abstract idea. If 2, then you have 1 + 1, and voila you have philosophy of mathematics. However, we have to first observe reality to understand the boundaries of our logical language. So you can imagine what 1+2+3+4+…+infinity would be, but if you state that is the case for all the apples in the world, then that is not true unless you demonstrate that reality reflects your logical model. (there are not an infinite amount of apples in the world, FYI) That is called a hypothesis. All hypotheses, in reference to reality, are logical arguments in reference to reality. So you have to test it against what reality demonstrates to be the case before you can have a JUSTIFIED model of reality because reality is the bar for justified belief/claims made about it. You have to demonstrate that your hypothesis is true or false. How do you demonstrate your deity hypothesis is any different than a comic book character? Both are internally logically consistent. But neither are demonstrated to be part of reality at all, are they? So if you are going to hang your hat on the idea that an untested claim about reality is actually justified to be true, then I have some sugar pills here that can cure cancer for you at the small price of your life savings.
 
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Damian said:
I reject the idea that you can use philosophy to define something into existence.
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You really don’t understand what I’m trying to say, do you . Like, you legitimately cannot comprehend it can you? That’s… honestly a little frightening.

I’m not saying we define God into existence. I’m saying we use philosophy and sound logic to conclude that there is necessarily a force external to the universe which sustains it and is responsible for its creation.

What I’m saying and what you seem to think I’m saying couldn’t be more different.

I’m done with this thread. You’re not interested in discussing anything which might contradict what you already assume to be true, even if we can (and have) repeatedly shown that your underlying assumption is self-refuting.
 
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I’ll leave this up to the fair minded readers to see who the genius is after that statement.
Biblical references of your deity doing this:
Burning bushes, road to Damascus, garden of Eden, etc.
 
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God is not in the bush. God caused the bush to burn.

God = painter

Burning bush = painting

This shouldn’t be that hard to follow.
 
You’re saying that the evidence of a conversation with a burning bush is equal in evidence of the milky way galaxy for example? One is talking and communicating, the other is not. However, I think I would be a little underwhelmed if the creator of reality used a burning bush to communicate. But this is still absurd to think that a being can do literally anything, can’t present itself to people that it exists at all. Just like your girlfriend in the next town over is always “traveling” when people ask her to show up.
 
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Damian said:
But this is still absurd to think that a being can do literally anything,
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RIght because you refuse to address the Aquinas argument (above) that proves God exists. Why? Because you can’t refute those arguments, as no Atheist can.
 
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If people could refute their hypothesis before they started their experiments, they wouldn’t have used that initial hypothesis. they would have changed their hypothesis. So is not refuting someone’s hypothesis make their hypothesis correct when it’s in reference to a claim about reality? No, why can’t the religious get this? It’s the results of comparing the claim against what reality demonstrates to justify that logical conclusion about reality. Logical arguments are just models of reality. The justified logical beliefs about reality have been tested against reality and match what reality indicates. So where is your test of your logical hypothesis to have a justified belief claim about reality? If you don’t have this, then you’re just presenting a hypothesis, which is fine to have, but not fine to believe it is justified to believe is true about reality, but justified to start looking within reality for that claim. Until you actually have data from reality on that claim, that is when you can be justified to believe that claims is true or false. So right now, it’s unjustified to hold your hypothesis as actually true since you can not determine the difference between Thanos and your Deity.
 
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Yawn. See Aquinas argument above. That’s 0 for 7 on offers to address his argument. Not good.
 
Aquinas11 said:
RIght because you refuse to address the Aquinas argument (above) that proves God exists. Why? Because you can’t refute those arguments, as no Atheist can.
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I shall not argue against Aquinas’ Five Ways here, but it needs to be pointed out that philosophers are not all wholehearted supporters of Aquinas’ reasoning.
 
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