No Truth

Well that's obviously false; you don't see God, and trust me, it is possible.

Where did that come from? I never said your life is any less valuable than mine. I didn't even say you were wrong. Don't put words in my mouth. However, I do think that my spiritual life is more filled with wonder than yours. Of course, I don't know this for sure; it's just a guess based on the fact that I've never met an atheist who thinks deeply about theological questions.

 

Faith is defined as belief in things unseen (Hebrews 11:1)

It may also be defined as: "Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. " - from www.dictionary.com

Therefore my question remains. Why do you believe? What evidence or reasons are there that would prompt one towards faith or belief in God?

You say, "Once you believe, the evidence is all around you".

This is faulty because reasons/evidence for belief are a prerequisite for belief to be present. If you have no reason or evidence to believe in a proposition, your holding to that proposition will be necessarily hollow or insincere (if you can embrace it at all).

Whether it be that you accept God on the grounds that your parents raised you that way, or by way of traditional or modern apologetical arguments and approaches, or because of your emotional state feeling materialism or atheism is insufficient, you still embrace god-belief on the grounds of these *reasons*, or these personal evidences.

Thus, your response to me is nonsensical. But please - do come back, and try again.

- JL

 

You know what, I don't like your smug, know-it-all attitude. It's clear that you've directed nothing but hostility towards me since your first post; I think anyone can see that, whether he has faith or not. If you keep it up I'll simply stop replying to your posts.

I don't disagree with that, but as usual Webster has failed to capture the totality of the word in his definition, not that I can blame him. Dictionaries are meant to give a brief, consice, and therefore, in some respects, necessarily inadequate hint at what word means. And after all, words fail those who try to describe faith adequately.

Well let's look back to your definition then,

"Faith is defined as belief in things unseen."

Sight, of course, is a sense. So then it follows that that the grounds for faith cannot be in empirical evidence. But let's take this a bit further; there is also no reason to have faith, what I mean by this is that rationality, reason, the rules of logic cannot conclusively determine, one way or the other, if there is or is not a God. So there can be no a priori, rationalised argument for the existence of God nor, therefore, the founding of faith.

So, you see, I agree with this definition. I just took it a little further to show you that Webster defines faith as what it is not, rather than what it is. Doesn't that suggest to you that your definition may be somewhat insufficient?

So what is my belief in the unseen founded upon? To oversimplify, it is based on the removal of the assumption that feeling (I mean feeling of the heart, not of the senses) is less valuable than empirical or rational evidence. So you can see, if not why there can be no reasonable argument supporting God's existence, why such an argument is unnecessary. The very idea of cutting down reason to the level of feeling, or perhaps raising feeling to the level of reason, is offensive to reason itself.

I'll write Webster and ask him to clarify his definition to prevent any further misunderstanding.

 

atheist simply means i dont believe in god. it doesnt mean i dont think about theological questions. it also doesnt mean that i cant accept that other people believe in god. i think that everyone has spirituality inside of them, some people call it god, others dont. i dont. capiche?

i dont believe your life is any better or worse than mine, just because you believe there's a god.

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

If you want to know anything about a being, you must presuppose its existences first. If you don't, you're not going to get very far.

I never said anything about that.

No, I don't understand. Without a belief in God, angels, an afterlife, devils, demons, ghosts, reincarnation, or what have you, things that most atheists tend to shun, how can one have a spiritual life?

Again, I never said I have a better life than you. You might be far more virtuous than me; I've never met you so I have no way of knowing. However, from what I do know about you (You're an atheist) I do believe that I have a better spiritual life than you, which, it seems to me, is a very important part of life.

 

we both clearly have different definitions of spirituality. obvisouly because i dont believe in those things my spiritual life will be different to yours. i think spirituality is a feeling oneness with your surroundings, a personal feeling of being able to heal yourself from problems, and see beauty in the simplest things. i think its also in the way you treat people, like the way you see others and their points of view, and i think its a feeling of peace within yourself.

would i be right in assuming that your definition of spirituality is closer to religious values? more linked with your religion than say, the world around you? this isnt a vindictive comment, im just trying to understand.

by life i meant 'spiritual life'. and i agree that spirituality is an important part of life, but i think it comes in different forms. thats what im saying. its an individual thing.

 

Spirituality is finding harmony within oneself.
The method to achieve such, is entirely arbitrary. Individuality.
-angels and devils not required-

 

That makes sense. Our misunderstandings could all be the result of different views of spirituality.

I can relate to that. Christian mysticism is about acheiving oneness with God, and that necessarily involves a feeling of connectedness with all of His creation.

Here, our views differ, but only superficially. I ask God to give me the strength to solve my problems; I don't expect Him to wave a magic wand and make all my personal suffering go away. However, the main problem (salvation) is not one that I can solve on my own. It's a gift from God ultimately.

When I see God's creation for what it is, I see beauty in all things. But to see things that way is a choice; that's all I meant by my original post.

Without a doubt.

Of course, it's also much more than that. It's contemplating God. It's not only feelings of peace, but the feeling of inadequacy when I compare myself to the Almighty. The list goes on.

Religious values come from within, just like my perception of the world around me. The two are inseparable.

Absolutely.

 

While I thank you for your thought-out reply, I must entirely disagree with your assertion that rational or empirical evidence is of less value than emotionalism when attempting to consider a proposition about reality.


Emotionalism focuses on what is inside you - that is, what you are feeling. Strictly speaking, it does not take into consideration objective facts external of one-self, and that is exactly what you are considering (whether there exists a god out there in or outside of the universe, or not). Thus emotionalism is a random method. If a person should role a dice, and your emotion wishes for the number 36 to be the result of the roll, whereas there is only six sides to the dice and the representative numbers are as such, then your response will be entirely wrong. So as said, by establishing a foundation of emotionalism you are employing the use of a random method to consider propositions about the external and objective reality that surrounds you.


Reason and observation are methods by which you do in fact view the external facts in reality in order to come to a conclusion about it. By viewing the numbers of the dice, and by employing reason (e.g. the dice has rolled 4 several times in a row, the likelihood of it hitting 4 again is dubious), you can get a much better idea of what the dice is going to land on. - Instead of basing yourself on emotionalism and receiving any number from 1 to infinity, you base yourself on observation and reason, increasing the likelihood of finding the correct answer.

Also, the rules of logic and etc. have been used to disprove the existence of a god just as they have been attempted to be used to prove the god-concept (TAG vs. Materialist Apologetics). TAG has been successfully defeated, in my view, and I haven't seen any satisfactory refutations of the arguments from materialist apologetics.


See here: www.strongatheism.com


The reason for my hostility towards you in the beginning was your statement of there being "evidence of god all around you" (this, in fact, presupposing that you have to **observe** around you or examine that evidence which is around you in order to come to the conclusion of a necessary god-concept). Such an assertion is typical of Fundamentalists - an intellectually shallow position that I am forced to deal with 20 times a day, thus I can lose my patience pretty quickly. If you do not consider yourself a Fundie, I apologize in advance - but I would suggest you word yourself better in the future - as a statement such as that entirely disregards atheology and is an injustice upon it (I suppose, giving respect to a particular worldview).


- JL

 

I want to deal with this first because while I was surfing around this website, I found a photo of a handsome chap named James Lazarus. Boy, would I like to debate him! First, let me congratulate you; you have some very good arguments, many of which I have never heard before. I applaud your originality and ingenuity.

Now, while I haven't read every essay on the site, I have picked up on five assertions which I would consider the basic premises of Strong Atheism:

1) Atheism (obviously)
2) The belief in an objective world which is in no way influenced by subjective experience, interpretation, ect.
3) A belief in the validity of empirical observation, and, even more so, in the scientific method.
4) This belief in the validity of science is supplimented with a belief in the powers of deduction, mathematics, and logic.
5) Disbelief in subjectivity's ability to tell us anything about the objective world, which is "out there" and completely other.

All of these premises are implicit in the remainder of your post below.

First of all, I was implying that subjective experience is of equal value to deduction and empirical evidence, not that emotion is superior. But let me take this oportunity to clarify. It would be more accurate to say I believe that there are some truths which can be known through sense experience, others which can be known by deduction, and others still which can only be known through feeling.

It is often said that God is omnipresent. While I do not believe this description of God to be entirely adequate, I do believe it will serve for the topic at hand. God is everywhere, including within me and even within my own subjective experience. So, while you could say that God is other than me, He is also a part of me. This only begins to scratch the serface of the relationship between God and man.

I do not agree. First, I'm sure we can both agree that if the premises of a deduction are fallacious, the deduction will be invalid, even if it is sound. Now let us consider the problem of universals. To make a universal, synthetic statement such as "All men are mortal," you would have to find all men past, present, and future and document their lives ensuring that each one of them dies. This is impossible. So, I do not believe that deduction, in the case of universals, is a undeniable source of truth. This goes for mathematics, too.

Now, let's turn to the scientific method, which, I think, you mean by "observation." You wouldn't say a mental patient is observing objective reality when he sees a dragon or ghost, would you? I find the scientific method to be dishonest. It presupposes the existence of an objective world, though, by its own method, it fails to prove the existence of one. In short, science cannot solve the problem of solipsism. Faith makes no such presupposition; it is admittedly subjective, but in this way it avoids the assumption made by science. Also, by using God as a first principle, the problem of solipsism can be avoided.

After a brief fascination with TAG, I have grown disenchanted with it. It makes things seem as if God created universals, when really they are man-made. It harkens back to the Platonic forms, I think. I'm not going to refute your entire website; I don't have that kind of time. But, if you post what you believe is your best argument, I'll do my best.

I'm certainly not a fundamentalist. I'm Catholic, which is about as far you get away from fundamentalism on the Christianity spectrum. However, the statement I made is hardly unique to fundamentalists, and no injustice.

 

Thank you J. After reading your post, and recognizing the intelligence and level of comprehension that you have, I’d like to humbly invite you to join the SA.com forums, here:



www.strongatheism.com/board



We’re always looking for more intellectuals to contribute to the discussion there.



The site itself is relatively new. We’re hoping to have a great more number of articles on there within the next three to four months. If you’d like to address particular arguments on the site extensively, you’re more then welcome to submit rebuttals to the authors and have your work put up on the site as a response. Another theist friend of mine is planning to do just that on the Argument From Scale.

Right, and also we hold to objective morality, which is something that I really should give notice to on the site (as strong-atheists need not be supporters of OM to hold to their position).

*Makes a mental note to write a summary in the Introduction*

Gotcha. I misread.



However, my former post did address the reasons why emotionalism is not a very good foundation at all, especially when compared to a base of reason - but you have made further comments, which I will address.

This seems to imply a sort of sensus divinatus. However…

For the sake of argument, allow me to grant you this. Does this still not reduce to God being part of objective and external reality that he might be omnipresent and inside you? Is subjective experience concrete enough when there is very good evidence to suggest that such experiences may be wholly explained from a materialist perspective?

To the first point: Agreed. – However, this does nothing to damage the necessity of logic when considering facts or its validity in application to propositions. It’s sole ability is to dispel contradictions from our thinking.

I do not think that you would have to find all men to establish the mortality of man – although this is somewhat beside the point. You could simply employ genetics and biology and see that man is made in a certain way which necessitates mortality.

One is able to state absolutes however – for instance, consider the axioms of logic. One cannot deny existence, consciousness, or identity without directly refuting themselves. Such fundamentals are necessary.

Our ability to recognize that a mental patient is suffering from delusion by way of observation reveals the method itself as still valid. You might also employ Descartes’ evil demon example, but I’m sure you already know my response to that.



Further, an objective world is necessary. Positive assertions within Philosophical skepticism already presuppose OR (objective reality). Science certainly takes for granted certain things – but those things, in my view, are well justified.



Please elaborate on God defeating the problem of solipsism – there are multiple routes you could go by that statement, I need to know which particular one you mean to take.

Yeah, it used to be my favorite argument for theism. All in all I suppose it still is – just cuz it’s fun to wrestle with.

Lol – I’ll certainly grant that Catholicism is usually far far away from Funny-mental-ism, but the latter is known for its bold claims with no back up. That is what I originally saw in your first post – although now I can see an intellectual behind it, so no worries.

 

Before I reply to your post, I have been trying to decipher from your posts, what philosophers have influenced you. Are you a follower of Ayn Rand's Objectivism philosophy? I think I saw a David Kelley reference in one of your essays. That would place you in the unofficial Objectivist school, which was excommunicated by Ayn Rand herself, I believe. Does this ever cause you distress? Ayn Rand was philosophical autocrat, expressly forbidding anyone to lable himself an "Objectivist" without her approval. She seemed to think she had an intellectual patent on the word. Kelley did not have her approval.

I will join your forum, and I think having something published would be a lot of fun. Of course, it may not be the first place I'd choose to have an essay of mine printed, but you've got to start somewhere.

I've been wanted to adress this, too. You are a Strong Atheist but there was no stronger atheist than Sartre, who absolutely denied the possibility of an objective morality in a universe without God. In "The case for objective morality," you write that material needs such as such as food are absolutely necessary to survival and, therefore, good. This presupposes that survival is somehow "better" than death. Take the case of, say, Gandhi. Imagine if he died on one of his fasts. By your moral code, it would have been better if he never fasted at all. This morality is also no less subjective than "weak atheist" morality. It is up to the human subject to determine when he is hungary. After that, any action he might take to get food is good, as it is a means to an end, which is a means to an end, which is good (because survival is good and death is bad).

To the first question, it does not reduce God to anything, rather it gives us a glimpse of the totality of God. But, if you mean does this still show us that the objective world is a part of God's nature, then the answer is yes. Heideggar wrote that consciousness always implies being conscious of something. If God is a part of your consciousness (meaning, the way you view the world) then you will be conscious of God in the objective world.

To the second question, subjective experience is nothing but concrete because it is entirely empirical, meaning that it is made up only out of concrete, particular experiences, as opposed to universal, abstract concepts gained through reason. Materialism in metaphysics is one of these abstract concepts. I'm interested as to how you would defend materialist metaphysics against idealist metaphysics. Which would you doubt more; a concrete experience felt by the senses, or an abstract concept attained through reason?

Without a doubt, but it makes it very difficult to descibe the attributes of an infinite being without using universals. Even such a concept as "infinity" is out. And if universals are inadequate in descibing God, then the problem of evil ceases to be a necessary contradiction.

Then you run into the problem of how to categorise a man. The word "man" itself is a universal. You could argue that the necessary quality that makes a man a man is mortality, but I don't think that captures the essence of what man really is, do you? You could limit mankind to a certain genetic make-up, but does that really capture what it is to be a man?

Nietzsche wrote about his fear that faith in God was nothing but faith in grammar. Indeed, I believe that many theologians have been guilty of such bad faith. Many philosophers have comitted the fallacy of bad faith, too. One is Descartes. It is essential to his cogito, that doubt cannot exist without a doubter. Why is this so? After all, if the universe could be uncaused, then why not doubt?

Not for the mental patient, it doesn't. He could be convinced that all the doctors telling him there is no dragon are merely the dragon's henchmen, trying to lull him into a state of ease and unreadiness. The problem of solipsism remains.

How? And why?

I was think specifically of the approach taken by negative theologians. God is something greater than myself therefore, I am not God. If I am not God, then there is a God outside myself. Therefore, there is an objective reality consisting of, at least, God. But there are many others.

No worries.

 

Ahhhh!! To much information.

I say two things: First: The human mind cannot come up with a universal truth, as it is subjective. Second: If there were a universal truth, the human mind would not be able to recognize it as such for the same reason.

 

:H Then try going solo,just you alone with God,his word and prayer!
man corupts the truth with his/her own version of it until it no longer
is God's truth but their own.
Seek God,and care what he thinks,and he will find you!

 

:H God is real,but you really gotta get sick of living for nothing
before you can understand that!

 

:sunglasse For those who do not yet know it,evolution is an ancient
religious belief,and thats why it has always been connected
to and with religion.
www.resurrectisis.org/PaganEvolution.htm
http://aig.gospelcom.net/docs/4067.asp
www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/ancient.html

and there is a book out by Henry Morris called" The Long War-
Against God" and it shows where evolution is an ancient pagan religious belief that is back yet again.
(Babylon is back folks)

 

While Objectivism certainly interests me, I do not hold to it myself. On SA.com, if you look at the end of the description of the article you’re clicking on, you can see the author of that particular article. The majority of articles that have come in currently are by a friend of mine, Franc Tremblay. Franc is indeed an Objectivist – so you’ll have to ask him about his security in his position.



Could you give me a link to the quote? I kinda told him not to show any real bias in his writing on morality, and David Kelley is a clear example of Libertarian ethics.

Lol – true enough.

The beginning of your response here borders dangerously on an appeal to authority. I can name numerous, well-known Strong-Atheists that hold or have held to objective moral systems – e.g. Martin and Smith.



Once again, Franc is the author of that particular article, but I will attempt to address your points anyway.



Franc writes from the position that life has intrinsic value – a position held by Objectivists. They note that in order for you to pursue any value, you must first be alive to do so – thus, life has intrinsic value, which is the answer to your question. And no – hunger is universally applicable to humanity, no matter at what frequency of intervals it may occur at (similar to any moral question – no matter when or how often a particular situation comes about where you have to make a moral decision, the moral is the same). While I don’t mind Objectivism, I’m glad you pointed out this article to me, because I want the website to be representative of Strong-Atheism in general, not a particular kind of Strong-Atheism (Objectivism).

To your first response – I meant neither point, really. Neither that God is being reduced to something more primitive, or that the outside world is part of God’s nature – but rather that God is a part of objective reality, that he might exist as part of it in order to be omnipresent in it and thus inside of you.



To your second point – you are certainly feeling something – however, if there is strong evidence to show that what you are feeling is not some vague “spiritual” thing at all, but rather is something entirely explainable from a materialistic perspective (as is shown by neurology, psychology, etc.), then how does this provide as sufficient evidence for the existence of a spiritual force? It has been explained as and is shown to be material sensation.

Why does the fact of an assertion’s premises being problematic in non-contradictory ways - leading to invalid conclusions post-logical process, lead to problems with applying universals? I suppose I’m not understanding your connection. I see no problem with logic when used as it’s supposed to be used.

I would categorize man from the scientific perspective – yes – the particular genetic make-up, etc that is unique to humanity. Thus you could say all [X]’s (humans) have (a specific biological make-up necessitating mortality, which is [Y]), and thus will obtain [Y]. This much is apparent to us and works well – and if you believe there is more, you’re of course welcome to explain and provide evidence/examples. But once again, with no valid objection to this view, there is no problem with using universals.

While I note your developed education in philosophy, I must point out that this response appears unrelated to my point. Existence need not have a doubter of it to be so – but even should a doubter proclaim his doubt, he would necessarily have to steal existence in order to do so. There’s no way out of it – it is an axiomatic concept.

He could certainly be convinced – but I am not arguing for the validity of sense perception on all levels, all times, etc. My argument is that it is certainly valid on a general level. Humanity, through sense perception, can and has observed mental disorders, and gains an understanding of their existence and how they work. Further, by scientific study (necessitating observation, thus sense perception) we might find cures. Because sense perception on this plane proves quite able to discern the real from the unreal, the genuine from the illusion, etc. – it remains valid.



One could argue that all sense perception may be invalid – like Descartes’ example, as noted before. But, as also noted, you probably already know my response to that.

Once again, I am explaining how such relativism works on a self-defeating level, employing the use of the stolen-concept fallacy. To say, “There is no truth”, or, “There is no reality”, is to make a statement proclaiming a truth or proclaiming a reality, - defeating their very assertion. So, like other mentioned concepts, objective reality is necessary. One cannot escape it; as to deny it one already presupposes it.

While I might like this approach – I’d prefer dissecting it first, anyway. As it is presented similarly to the ontological argument, I would have to point out that this seems to be working backwards. Presupposing existence to count as a predicate, God may only be defined as such if he already exists externally – which, if you don’t accept any other method of verification, leads you to inevitable defeat, because you’d never be able to tell.


Thanks for the reply. Looking forward to your response.

- JL

 

Fair enough. But tell me, do you and Franc share a lot of philosophical common ground? I would imagine so since you are both Strong Atheists.

Could you give me a link to the quote? I kinda told him not to show any real bias in his writing on morality, and David Kelley is a clear example of Libertarian ethics.

In "The case for Objective Morality" Franc wrote, "As David Kelley judiciously writes in 'Logical Structure of Objectivism' (italics his) :

'The place of biological needs in the logical structure of Objectivism is this: since one’s life is one’s ultimate value, one has to know what one needs for the maintenance of life in order to know what to seek as a value.

The needs of a living organism determine its goals. In other words, its needs determine its values.'
(p69-70)"

I wouldn't call it "showing bias," however. I'd call it citing a source, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Yes, it does but fortunately, it is followed by an argument, which you adress below, after reiterating that Franc wrote the article.

It seems a presupposition to assume that there are any values to be pursued, let alone to believe that values may be ranked on a scale of worst through best. After all, if all life has intrinsic value, then all life can give a presumably equal value to whatever the lifeform desires. But then, of course, there is the problem of how value is transferred from the lifeform, who has intrinsic value, to the object of his value, which, before being the object of his value, had no value. I have difficulty fathoming how this teleportation of value takes place, especially in a materialist metaphysics.

The fate of this question depends on the answer to the problem of universals, which I will get to later.

This is an assumption, and one with which I disagree. But again, the answer rests on the solution to the problem of universals.

It's good for a reader to know the intellectual roots of the author. It allows him to put the text in context.

I am not disputing that God is a part of objective reality; I am asserting that the totality of objective reality can ever be known through the sciences because science always rests on presuppositions which cannot be proven by its own method. Science is based on coherency, not correspondancy, and is therefore subjective. I am also asserting that faith avoids such a fallacy by embracing subjectivity rather than shunning it. Unlike science, faith can be validated by its own method.