Atheism; An Intellectual Dead End

[Ancient lion]

Dear Mr Atheist - You have no right !

 

[Czernobog]

Which is a polite way of saying believing in fantasies. Sorry. There is nothing outside of Time and Space, and wishing it so does not make it so.

I have more good reason for my faith than you do for yours.

No, you don't. What objective evidence do you have that anything exists beyond reality?

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what reality?

You believe there is more than one? And your objective evidence to support that belief would be...?

It is easy to believe that reality as we see it is a reflection of reality as it actually is. In other words we tend to assume that the perceptual function that the mind plays is passive, like a mirror, and doesn’t alter the image of reality that it reflects to us. Not so, said Kant. Our perception of reality might start with sensations of something outside of ourselves, but by the time we perceive it our mind has organized, categorized and arranged those raw sensations into reality as it appears to us.

We can’t know reality directly. We don’t perceive of things in themselves. What we perceive as reality is in part created by our minds. And this creation of reality isn’t only the unconscious work of the mind as a machine, as some before Kant had believed, the creative process that constructs reality as we see it is also influenced by us. Of all of the infinite sensations, physical, emotional and conceptual that we experience at any given time we are only aware of a small percentage. The rest we ignore, but those that we attend to are compiled into reality as we see it.
.....
What Kant did for Western Philosophy was make human beings part of the creative process of reality as we see it. In this he dealt a blow to both religion and science. To religion he insisted that we can’t perceive of God directly because our perception of God will also be partly of our own construction. To science likewise he takes away the ruse of objectivity because everything we observe will always be influenced by us.

Kant and the Creation of Reality

The problem is that this is a premise, not a conclusion. By what validated methodology did Kant arrive at his conclusions? Further, of what practical value is Kant's noumena? After all, if, by the very act of observing any part of his trancendental "reality", one negates it "true nature", then, in the end Kant's entire philosophical construct is nothing more than an amusing, if elaborate thought experiment.

 

[ding]

I agree with that and that is exactly what I did too. The Truth will set you free.

Not based on the arguments you're making

I'm not making any arguments. That's what you want me to do.

When do you work and when do you golf?

Usually every other Friday (9/80), then a couple of times on the weekends, after work 2 to 3 times a week when DST hits and then during my 6 weeks of vacation. Of course this year I have carried over so much vacation (52 days in 2017) that I will be taking all Friday's off. For the last 4 months we have been working 16 hour days and weekends. I had 131 rounds through September. Since September I've had 4.

You're going to hell

Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches,
Jeremiah 9:23

Proverbs 27:1
Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.

Probably.

 

[ding]

Nothing that we can directly observe. Yes. That's where faith comes in.

Which is a polite way of saying believing in fantasies. Sorry. There is nothing outside of Time and Space, and wishing it so does not make it so.

I have more good reason for my faith than you do for yours.

No you don't but you are the first theist to bore me. LOL. Usually the theist stops but you have forced me to lose interest and give up. Mission accomplished I bet huh god believer?

What reason do you have for yours?

Taking a quick break

That's weak. You have nothing. It is a good thing you didn't try to play it like you did.

 

[Mudda]

Which is a polite way of saying believing in fantasies. Sorry. There is nothing outside of Time and Space, and wishing it so does not make it so.

I have more good reason for my faith than you do for yours.

No you don't but you are the first theist to bore me. LOL. Usually the theist stops but you have forced me to lose interest and give up. Mission accomplished I bet huh god believer?

What reason do you have for yours?

Taking a quick break

That's weak. You have nothing. It is a good thing you didn't try to play it like you did.

So you can tell when someone has nothing? You learn that by looking in the mirror?

 

[WillReadmore]

You're absolutely right. Nothing is subject to the laws of physics, because nothing is all that exists outside of time and space.

Sent from my 5054N using Tapatalk

Nothing that we can directly observe. Yes. That's where faith comes in.

Which is a polite way of saying believing in fantasies. Sorry. There is nothing outside of Time and Space, and wishing it so does not make it so.

I have more good reason for my faith than you do for yours.

No, you don't. What objective evidence do you have that anything exists beyond reality?

Sent from my 5054N using Tapatalk

We've gone over this a dozen times, what He created and what I have tested. What do you have?

That argument isn't objective.

Beyond that, your logic is circular, isn't it? You're essentially saying that god created it, thus there must be a god.

I think you need to take that first huge step of believing there is a superhuman intelligence regardless of evidence or anything else.

Trying to cough up objective evidence of god is a fool's errand.

 

[Mudda]

Dear Mr Atheist - You have no right !

Mohammed wiped the shit from his asshole with his hand. Is that who you worship?

 

[Czernobog]

Nothing that we can directly observe. Yes. That's where faith comes in.

Which is a polite way of saying believing in fantasies. Sorry. There is nothing outside of Time and Space, and wishing it so does not make it so.

I have more good reason for my faith than you do for yours.

No, you don't. What objective evidence do you have that anything exists beyond reality?

Sent from my 5054N using Tapatalk

We've gone over this a dozen times, what He created and what I have tested. What do you have?

That argument isn't objective.

Beyond that, your logic is circular, isn't it? You're essentially saying that god created it, thus there must be a god.

I think you need to take that first huge step of believing there is a superhuman intelligence regardless of evidence or anything else.

Trying to cough up objective evidence of god is a fool's errand.

That's rather the point I have been making all along. Theists can believe whatever they like. That is their right. However, please do not insult my intelligence by trying to suggest that their belief is rational, or that it is based on objective, verifiable evidence.

 

[Czernobog]

Dear Mr Atheist - You have no right !

Yeah, you were doing all right, right up until you accused atheists of minimalizing things like murder, and rape. You're right. Science cannot measure, or weigh ethical questions, however, ethics is a matter of human behaviour; it doesn't require religion to explain it. Further, why should I prove that I have a "mind". After all, "mind" is a sociological construct. It is just a term used to label the ability of man to reason; it is a label used to set man above the lower animals who lack such capacity. What one wishes to call that ability is arbitrary, like so many of our labels.

Do you know why, Ancient Lion, red is red? Because that is what we called it. That's it. We could have, when we first learned how to label things, called Wankinstuffel, then for all time we would have been talking about the colour wankenstiuffel. But, we didn't. We called it red. So, now it's red.

The same with the concept of "the mind". It'a just a label to describe the processex of consciousness, rationality, and determined behaviour.

"God", on the ohther hand, is insisted by theists, to be an actual thing - an entity, a being. As such, there should be actual, observable, identifiable evidence of its existence. Yet, there. Is. Nothing.

 

[ding]

I have more good reason for my faith than you do for yours.

No you don't but you are the first theist to bore me. LOL. Usually the theist stops but you have forced me to lose interest and give up. Mission accomplished I bet huh god believer?

What reason do you have for yours?

Taking a quick break

That's weak. You have nothing. It is a good thing you didn't try to play it like you did.

So you can tell when someone has nothing? You learn that by looking in the mirror?

In this case it isn't hard. There is no natural evidence of a supernatural being other than what He created and they don't accept that so they paint themselves into a I am looking for natural evidence of a supernatural being corner. They literally have no evidence so their reason is based on nothing.

 

[WillReadmore]

Dear Mr Atheist - You have no right !

Yeah, you were doing all right, right up until you accused atheists of minimalizing things like murder, and rape. You're right. Science cannot measure, or weigh ethical questions, however, ethics is a matter of human behaviour; it doesn't require religion to explain it. Further, why should I prove that I have a "mind". After all, "mind" is a sociological construct. It is just a term used to label the ability of man to reason; it is a label used to set man above the lower animals who lack such capacity. What one wishes to call that ability is arbitrary, like so many of our labels.

Do you know why, Ancient Lion, red is red? Because that is what we called it. That's it. We could have, when we first learned how to label things, called Wankinstuffel, then for all time we would have been talking about the colour wankenstiuffel. But, we didn't. We called it red. So, now it's red.

The same with the concept of "the mind". It'a just a label to describe the processex of consciousness, rationality, and determined behaviour.

"God", on the ohther hand, is insisted by theists, to be an actual thing - an entity, a being. As such, there should be actual, observable, identifiable evidence of its existence. Yet, there. Is. Nothing.

"

"God", on the ohther hand, is insisted by theists, to be an actual thing - an entity, a being. As such, there should be actual, observable, identifiable evidence of its existence. Yet, there. Is. Nothing."

I agree with what you're saying. But, I would add that the lack of evidence of God does not mean there is no God.

Basically, we have no legitimate scientific evidence on either side of the question of God's existence. One has to resort to logic and "evidence" that is fundamentally religious in order to say ANYTHING about god.

Or, at least that's my view.

 

[WillReadmore]

No you don't but you are the first theist to bore me. LOL. Usually the theist stops but you have forced me to lose interest and give up. Mission accomplished I bet huh god believer?

What reason do you have for yours?

Taking a quick break

That's weak. You have nothing. It is a good thing you didn't try to play it like you did.

So you can tell when someone has nothing? You learn that by looking in the mirror?

In this case it isn't hard. There is no natural evidence of a supernatural being other than what He created and they don't accept that so they paint themselves into a I am looking for natural evidence of a supernatural being corner. They literally have no evidence so their reason is based on nothing.

Yes. There is nothing that can be considered evidence on either side of the question of God's existence.

Scientific Method offers no way of proving either side of this question.

And, resorting to the laws and logic of religion to "prove" there is a god is ludicrous. Religion holds the existence of god as a primary assumption - something that does not require evidence or proof. It makes no sense at all to try to "prove" a primary assumption. All such arguments are circular.

 

[Czernobog]

Dear Mr Atheist - You have no right !

Yeah, you were doing all right, right up until you accused atheists of minimalizing things like murder, and rape. You're right. Science cannot measure, or weigh ethical questions, however, ethics is a matter of human behaviour; it doesn't require religion to explain it. Further, why should I prove that I have a "mind". After all, "mind" is a sociological construct. It is just a term used to label the ability of man to reason; it is a label used to set man above the lower animals who lack such capacity. What one wishes to call that ability is arbitrary, like so many of our labels.

Do you know why, Ancient Lion, red is red? Because that is what we called it. That's it. We could have, when we first learned how to label things, called Wankinstuffel, then for all time we would have been talking about the colour wankenstiuffel. But, we didn't. We called it red. So, now it's red.

The same with the concept of "the mind". It'a just a label to describe the processex of consciousness, rationality, and determined behaviour.

"God", on the ohther hand, is insisted by theists, to be an actual thing - an entity, a being. As such, there should be actual, observable, identifiable evidence of its existence. Yet, there. Is. Nothing.

"

"God", on the ohther hand, is insisted by theists, to be an actual thing - an entity, a being. As such, there should be actual, observable, identifiable evidence of its existence. Yet, there. Is. Nothing."

I agree with what you're saying. But, I would add that the lack of evidence of God does not mean there is no God.

Basically, we have no legitimate scientific evidence on either side of the question of God's existence. One has to resort to logic and "evidence" that is fundamentally religious in order to say ANYTHING about god.

Or, at least that's my view.

*sigh* Can't anyone ever come up with an original thought? As I have said repeatedly, rational atheism does not maintain that the existence of divinity is an impossibility. Rather it assumes the default position of scientific study - the null correspondence. In other words, the default position is that God does not exist. It is up to those who insist that God does exist to present objective evidence to support that position. Once such evidence is, indeed, presented, then the null position is abandoned in favour of a new hypothesis that fits with the evidence presented. Until then, the default position of "God does not exist" is maintained.

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[ding]

What reason do you have for yours?

Taking a quick break

That's weak. You have nothing. It is a good thing you didn't try to play it like you did.

So you can tell when someone has nothing? You learn that by looking in the mirror?

In this case it isn't hard. There is no natural evidence of a supernatural being other than what He created and they don't accept that so they paint themselves into a I am looking for natural evidence of a supernatural being corner. They literally have no evidence so their reason is based on nothing.

Yes. There is nothing that can be considered evidence on either side of the question of God's existence.

Scientific Method offers no way of proving either side of this question.

And, resorting to the laws and logic of religion to "prove" there is a god is ludicrous. Religion holds the existence of god as a primary assumption - something that does not require evidence or proof. It makes no sense at all to try to "prove" a primary assumption. All such arguments are circular.

We have what was created as evidence. We can study that. There's nothing circular about it. There are two options, there either is or there isn't. It is not circular to examine each option.

 

[WillReadmore]

Dear Mr Atheist - You have no right !

Yeah, you were doing all right, right up until you accused atheists of minimalizing things like murder, and rape. You're right. Science cannot measure, or weigh ethical questions, however, ethics is a matter of human behaviour; it doesn't require religion to explain it. Further, why should I prove that I have a "mind". After all, "mind" is a sociological construct. It is just a term used to label the ability of man to reason; it is a label used to set man above the lower animals who lack such capacity. What one wishes to call that ability is arbitrary, like so many of our labels.

Do you know why, Ancient Lion, red is red? Because that is what we called it. That's it. We could have, when we first learned how to label things, called Wankinstuffel, then for all time we would have been talking about the colour wankenstiuffel. But, we didn't. We called it red. So, now it's red.

The same with the concept of "the mind". It'a just a label to describe the processex of consciousness, rationality, and determined behaviour.

"God", on the ohther hand, is insisted by theists, to be an actual thing - an entity, a being. As such, there should be actual, observable, identifiable evidence of its existence. Yet, there. Is. Nothing.

"

"God", on the ohther hand, is insisted by theists, to be an actual thing - an entity, a being. As such, there should be actual, observable, identifiable evidence of its existence. Yet, there. Is. Nothing."

I agree with what you're saying. But, I would add that the lack of evidence of God does not mean there is no God.

Basically, we have no legitimate scientific evidence on either side of the question of God's existence. One has to resort to logic and "evidence" that is fundamentally religious in order to say ANYTHING about god.

Or, at least that's my view.

*sigh* Can't anyone ever come up with an original thought? As I have said repeatedly, rational atheism does not maintain that the existence of divinity is an impossibility. Rather it assumes the default position of scientific study - the null correspondence. In other words, the default position is that God does not exist. It is up to those who insist that God does exist to present objective evidence to support that position. Once such evidence is, indeed, presented, then the null position is abandoned in favour of a new hypothesis that fits with the evidence presented. Until then, the default position of "God does not exist" is maintained.

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Sure. But, that is essentially a feature of scientific method.

And, the point is in whether one is interested in using scientific method or a method of religion.

The "null correspondence" thing is one difference. But there are others, too. For example, science and religion don't share fundamental assumptions, what constitutes evidence, or even rules of logic.

I didn't mention your point, because the fact that science would assume the nonexistence of God as the starting point doesn't hit me as something that any religiously oriented individual would even care about.

Of course, I then turned around and pointed to the existence of god as the fundamental assumption of religion. My only excuse is that those of religion who try to "prove" god seem to miss this that.

 

[Constructive Anarchy]

Are Atheists able to use rational thought, deductive reasoning, and scrupulous logic to substantiate and legitimize their perceptions? Or are they simply lacking a perception that most people experience without the need for rationalization? Are they spiritually dumb?

Are theists able to use rational thought, use deductive reasoning, and yadda yadda? Ban The teaching of Evolution to condemning Galileo's teachings as heretical? So are we going somewhere here? Religion burns people to death and crashes planes into buildings, so if there IS a more rational way of thought and behavior, it isn't religious. And religion isn't in any way in a position to point out who's who among the irrational given what they have done and are doing now.

Another scholar who just isn't quite smart enough to realize that I haven't made a single argument for religion anywhere in this thread. Likewise, supposed atheists haven't made a single argument in support of atheism. They can only argue against religion because there is no affirmative argument for atheism.

 

[WillReadmore]

Taking a quick break

That's weak. You have nothing. It is a good thing you didn't try to play it like you did.

So you can tell when someone has nothing? You learn that by looking in the mirror?

In this case it isn't hard. There is no natural evidence of a supernatural being other than what He created and they don't accept that so they paint themselves into a I am looking for natural evidence of a supernatural being corner. They literally have no evidence so their reason is based on nothing.

Yes. There is nothing that can be considered evidence on either side of the question of God's existence.

Scientific Method offers no way of proving either side of this question.

And, resorting to the laws and logic of religion to "prove" there is a god is ludicrous. Religion holds the existence of god as a primary assumption - something that does not require evidence or proof. It makes no sense at all to try to "prove" a primary assumption. All such arguments are circular.

We have what was created as evidence. We can study that. There's nothing circular about it. There are two options, there either is or there isn't. It is not circular to examine each option.

Yes, we can and will continue to study and broaden our understanding of our universe.

That IS what science does.

But, you are suggesting there is evidence for a particular outcome on one question (the existence or nonexistence of an all-powerful intelligence), and there you have a real problem.

 

[ding]

That's weak. You have nothing. It is a good thing you didn't try to play it like you did.

So you can tell when someone has nothing? You learn that by looking in the mirror?

In this case it isn't hard. There is no natural evidence of a supernatural being other than what He created and they don't accept that so they paint themselves into a I am looking for natural evidence of a supernatural being corner. They literally have no evidence so their reason is based on nothing.

Yes. There is nothing that can be considered evidence on either side of the question of God's existence.

Scientific Method offers no way of proving either side of this question.

And, resorting to the laws and logic of religion to "prove" there is a god is ludicrous. Religion holds the existence of god as a primary assumption - something that does not require evidence or proof. It makes no sense at all to try to "prove" a primary assumption. All such arguments are circular.

We have what was created as evidence. We can study that. There's nothing circular about it. There are two options, there either is or there isn't. It is not circular to examine each option.

Yes, we can and will continue to study and broaden our understanding of our universe.

That IS what science does.

But, you are suggesting there is evidence for a particular outcome on one question (the existence or nonexistence of an all-powerful intelligence), and there you have a real problem.

No. I don't. There are plenty of signs if one only looks with an open mind.

 

[WillReadmore]

Are Atheists able to use rational thought, deductive reasoning, and scrupulous logic to substantiate and legitimize their perceptions? Or are they simply lacking a perception that most people experience without the need for rationalization? Are they spiritually dumb?

Are theists able to use rational thought, use deductive reasoning, and yadda yadda? Ban The teaching of Evolution to condemning Galileo's teachings as heretical? So are we going somewhere here? Religion burns people to death and crashes planes into buildings, so if there IS a more rational way of thought and behavior, it isn't religious. And religion isn't in any way in a position to point out who's who among the irrational given what they have done and are doing now.

Another scholar who just isn't quite smart enough to realize that I haven't made a single argument for religion anywhere in this thread. Likewise, supposed atheists haven't made a single argument in support of atheism. They can only argue against religion because there is no affirmative argument for atheism.

I share that view - that science doesn't offer an affirmative argument for atheism (or for theism).

On the other hand, I think religion makes the existence of god a root assumption - thus something that can't be proven true or false within religion.

 

[ding]

Are Atheists able to use rational thought, deductive reasoning, and scrupulous logic to substantiate and legitimize their perceptions? Or are they simply lacking a perception that most people experience without the need for rationalization? Are they spiritually dumb?

Are theists able to use rational thought, use deductive reasoning, and yadda yadda? Ban The teaching of Evolution to condemning Galileo's teachings as heretical? So are we going somewhere here? Religion burns people to death and crashes planes into buildings, so if there IS a more rational way of thought and behavior, it isn't religious. And religion isn't in any way in a position to point out who's who among the irrational given what they have done and are doing now.

Another scholar who just isn't quite smart enough to realize that I haven't made a single argument for religion anywhere in this thread. Likewise, supposed atheists haven't made a single argument in support of atheism. They can only argue against religion because there is no affirmative argument for atheism.

I share that view - that science doesn't offer an affirmative argument for atheism (or for theism).

On the other hand, I think religion makes the existence of god a root assumption - thus something that can't be proven true or false within religion.

All hypothesis start out as unproven. It must be examined and tested to be proven.